SOCIAL ACTIVIST MAYOR OF BARCELONA WANTS CITIZENS TO USE COUPONS INSTEAD OF EUROS.

So today, a well-known financial blogger alerted his readers to a story about the mayor of Barcelona, Spain, Ada Colau, who is seeking to make good on an election promise — to introduce a local currency. El Pais carried the story months ago in, An alternative currency for Barcelona? and Cryptocoinnews.com updated the story in MAYOR OF BARCELONA ADVOCATES FOR A LOCAL DIGITAL CURRENCY.



Likely, it will not be currency for the exact same reason that Bitcoin isn't currency — it will lack bearer negotiability [See: BITCOIN IS SOFTWARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT. BITCOIN IS NOT LEGAL TENDER CASH ]. Digital schemes always require proof of ownership. Thus such schemes can't be currency.

Notice how the mayor Colau failed to advocate for something far simpler — use actual money such as silver coins or gold coins but not both.

Colau perpetuates another delusion. How does the local merchant who earns all of his livelihood in Barcelona Bits  travel for vacation to Hamburg or Paris? Who will take his Barcelona Bits for Euros? How will any local merchant pay for imported wares?

"Local currency" schemes are more like coupon books sold by Entertainment. But rather than being specific coupons printed with the exact trade terms of a particular merchant complete with the merchant's logo, a local currency is merely an undifferentiated coupon that all merchants have agreed to accept at the same terms.

All people are doing is bartering coupons for merchandise and merchandise for coupons. The seller of those coupons agrees to redeem coupons from the merchants for bank credits from an actual banking system.

Who can redeem those Barcelona Bits for EUR or USD without incurring costs for computers, electricity, programmers and other staff? So what is the fee all must pay upon each of their transactions for this Barcelona Bits service?

Why would prudent shopkeepers with actual business acumen want to burden themselves with extra expenses?

Coupons are promotions whereby businessmen have decided to accept lower margins. Most who do are trying to gain market share for the future.

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BITCOIN IS SOFTWARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT. BITCOIN IS NOT LEGAL TENDER CASH.

Bitcoin is software. The law which governs property in software is copyright. In essence, Bitcoin is no different than musical works of the Beatles, which is the right way to look at Bitcoin.

Bitcoin trades for legal tender cash and bank credits, which can be converted into legal tender cash. Works of copyright also trade for legal tender cash and bank credits.

Speculating in copyright is a normal part of trade. Speculation in Bitcoin amounts to speculation in copyright.  

In Anglo-American jurisprudence, property means right of ownership and never the thing owned. Property means the right to possess, the right to give away, the right to destroy, the right to recover upon theft.

In trade, people buy and sell property. They don't buy and sell  things. When you buy milk from the market with cash, you buy the right to own the milk and part of that right is possession.

Yet, there are many times when people buy property, or right of ownership and never take possession. Few ever take possession of their stock certificates when they buy property in a firm as parceled in stock. Landlords never take possession of their rental property. Their tenants do.

Without doubt, Bitcoin is not "a peer-to-peer electronic cash system."  Bitcoins aren't "electronic cash" nor are Bitcoins cash at all. 

Cash requires bank credits. Cash is paper that evidences bank credits. Cash arises as an artifact of banking. 

Whether legal tender or not, cash is denominated bank notes circulating as evidence of deposits. Deposits are bank credits. Denomination means named multiples of the unit of bank credits, such as a ten dollar bill, a twenty dollar bill or a one-hundred dollar bill.

Today, Americans have cash. Specifically, Americans have legal tender cash. So too do Canadians have legal tender cash, the Brits, all those of the Eurozone, the Japanese, and so on. Legal tender cash is centralized bank notes circulating in perpetuity. Seemingly, legal tender cash does the work of money, but never is cash actual money. 

Money is coined metal by weight and fineness. The Romans said so. It's their word. Even the U.S. Constitution supports that concept. 

When money existed, money gave its possessor currency. Money doesn't exist and hasn't for many decades.  

Always, money can exist without banking and government. Cash only can exist with banking and banks. Never can cash exist without banking and banks. Not only does legal tender cash need banking, but also legal tender cash needs government.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital protocol for transferring property of copyright. Any specific Bitcoin is an arrangement of electromagnetic impressions — bits in a pattern — on a recording medium. Each Bitcoin is software with built-in digital copy protection that prohibits duplication.  

In essence, that is all any specific Bitcoin is. Any Bitcoin, identified by its blockchain, is little more than a work of art. 

As such, any specific Bitcoin identified by its blockchain falls under copyright. The copyright in Bitcoin gives anyone exclusive right to prevent duplication of a specific work of Bitcoin as designated by its blockchain.

Copyright gives the owner of a specific bitcoin, property in that bitcoin, or the right of ownership. Anyone who owns bitcoin can make copies of that bitcoin for himself in various digital storage media. However, when someone sells their copyright in bitcoin in a purchase and sale, the ability to use any copies gets lost owing to the Bitcoin blockchain protocol.  

Currency means bearer negotiability. It doesn't mean cash. Bearer negotiability means the property (right of ownership) goes with possession. No need exists to prove title.

So when you buy milk at the Quik-E-Mart with cash, you don't first prove to the cashier that you own the cash. The cashier readily takes your cash and lets you walk out the store with the milk.

In a purchase and sale of cash for milk, the agents of the owners of the market buy property in cash and sell property in milk. You sell your property in cash and buy property in milk.



With Bitcoin, even though people seemingly are anonymous, the software everyone must use to manage transaction between two parties of trades with Bitcoins exists to proves title in Bitcoins. That is what the block chain mechanism of challenge and proof is all about.

Bitcoin lacks currency, because title must get proven of every Bitcoin in a trade. If Bitcoin gave any possessor currency, property in Bitcoin, that is the right of ownership, would go with possession. No one would need prove he owns a specific Bitcoin before trading it away in a purchase and sale. 

Cash gives anyone currency, which is another way of saying bearer negotiability, precisely because no one needs to prove title to cash before selling cash and buying something with it in a purchase and sale. 

Prepaid anonymous debit cards are the closest thing to electronic cash. All cash is evidence of bank deposits. Both cash and deposits are liabilities of bankers. Ask bankers. The smart ones will tell you what I have told you.

Bitcoin is more akin to "prisoner's money." Mostly, Bitcoin gets used to trade contraband in extra-legal purchases and sales. Basically, Bitcoin exists to facilitate heroin dealing where deals get made anonymously through the Internet while delivery gets made through legitimate package delivery services, such as UPS, Fedex, USPS, DHL, Canada Post and the like. 

Many have been tricked by the metaphor used to explain Bitcoin, being fooled, nay, suckered into believing Bitcoin is banking-free cash, which is an impossibility, and into believing Bitcoin is money, also an impossibility, as money is coined metal by weight and fineness. 

When people trade bitcoin for drugs and drugs for bitcoins, people are bartering. Such bartering is the same as trading a digital movie with copy protection for drugs and drugs for a movie with digital copy protection. 

Bitcoin requires banking because no one would want to accept Bitcoin as payment unless also being able to sell Bitcoins for legal tender cash or bank credits of an established banking system. Without others willing to sell cash or bank credits and buy Bitcoins, Bitcoins would be useless. 

Bitcoins are as dependent upon banks and banking as any other copyrighted product put on offer for trade in purchases and sales for cash and credit.

At day's end, if ever before a legitmate court, Bitcoin shall end up being ruled as incorporeal, immaterial chattels jura in re propria.

So you can truly understand Bitcoin, check out FROM BITCOIN TO SHITCOIN IN ONLY A FEW DAYS.

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FROM BITCOIN TO SHITCOIN IN ONLY A FEW DAYS.

It's all over mainstream media. Reuters, Forbes, and many others  — all say that bitcoin has taken a serious blow because of the collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange.

I don't see how anyone could have trusted their bitcoins to Mt. Gox, a web site started by guy to buy and sell geek cards for the game Magic: The Gathering, hence the name Magic: the Gathering Online Exchange.

I don't get bitcoin at all, I guess. I thought that anyone installed a piece of software on his computer, called a wallet, and then by buying bitcoin from someone else through selling cash or checking account credit, that one always had his bitcoins as long as his hard drive didn't crash or he didn't lose his computer or forget his wallet password.

I thought bitcoin exchanges existed only for those who wanted to sell out of bitcoin and buy bank credits denominated in dollars, yen, euros, krone or Swiss francs; or for those who wanted to buy bitcoins, perhaps to sit on those coins hoping to gain appreciation relative to bank credits denominated in central bank cash of one of the many centralized bank note systems in operation today, or maybe to buy drugs who deliver drugs through postal services.

So I thought that bitcoin exchanges were like down-the-street, real-life gold and silver coin dealers, numismatists who buy and sell gold and silver coins and rounds and the like. I thought bitcoin exchange operators earned their profit from either charging a fee in bank credits of a designated banking system  (USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CHF, CAD, AUD, NOK, etc.) above the trading price of bitcoin as a small percent for handling exchange or they charged a part of bitcoin for exchanging bitcoins into bank credits of various kinds.

So I don't see how a bitcoin exchange could lose anyone's bitcoins unless they also were providing a warehouse service. But why would anyone use a warehouse service giving up possession in his bitcoins?

Doesn't using a warehouse service defeat the purpose of being in control of one's bitcoins and being anonymous? Could not any government agents raid any bitcoin exchange and examine by IP addresses and other digital fingerprints to discover who owns those bitcoin warehouse accounts?

Recent articles in Forbes attack bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme and as presenting problems to American retailers with sales tax liability.

It is illusory that anyone possessing bitcoin has currency, which is another way of saying bearer negotiability, or the property in the bitcoin goes with every exchange without needing proof of ownership, the same as cash, unlike bank credit. Every transfer of bitcoin requires challenge and proof of property, that is, proof of exclusivity, which amounts to de facto ownership.

In the real world, when a right of ownership (property) dispute arises, people have recourse. They can plead their cases in court regulated by law in the administration of justice. In the Bitcoin world, if someone swipes your bitcoins from your bitcoin wallet, you become the loser with no recourse.

Bitcoin is a weak circulating medium. So few retailers take bitcoin relative to the hundreds of millions of retailers the earth over who take bank credits seemlessly and without doubt who always take cash of the local banking system. It would be a stretch to say that more than 2,500 retailers the earth over take bitcoin. SpendBitcoins publishes this directory of firms, which accept bitcoins as payment.

Supposedly, as the story goes, a computer-geek named Satoshi Nakamoto published an academic paper in 2008 detailing a digital payment system  that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the need of the central clearing house of any banking system. Bitcoins get created by computers programmed by individuals to solve complex mathematical problems, which require significant real computing resources, like equipment and electricity.

There is a finite number of coins which can get mined and that number is 21 million. Bitcoins get produced on a schedule of 25 bitcoins about every ten minutes. In 2017, that schedule changes to 12.5 bitcoins every ten minutes. In turn, that shall get halved ever four years until 127 years from now, in 2140, when the final bitcoin shall be generated, assuming that bitcoins acceptance survives that long.

Right now, over 11 million bitcoins have been generated and now are in possession of some. Each bitcoin can be divided by anyone in possession to eight decimal places, making the smallest division 0.00000001 of a bitcoin. This division is known as a satoshi.

As I understand it, when anyone installs wallet software on his computer, he gets a complete ledger that details every transaction ever conducted using the specific bitcoins in his wallet. In geek-speak, each bitcoin has a record of transactions associated with it known as "block chain."

Known as peer-to-peer, the bitcoin system records all transactions publicly with a timestamp, which lets bitcoin users agree on a history of the order of transaction as a method to block anyone from trying to spend the same coin twice. According to Satoshi Nakamoto, the bitcoin system is vulnerable from a group of attacker nodes against an honest node.

If anyone loses his wallet, all his bitcoins get lost, not only for him, but everyone else as well. The lost bitcoins remain in the tally of mined coins, but no one can get access to those coins to spend those coins. In effect, it is as if someone rocketed those coins into deep space.

There seems little reason for anyone to be involved with bitcoins. Online retailers and retailers the earth over accept debit cards, credit cards and often Paypal. And who doesn't accept cash as payment?

There is no recourse through bitcoins. No one can plead right of action in court for recovery against fraud.

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