What the Bitcoin Fork Issue Means For The Future Of Bitcoin

It is wonderful to see the evolution of bitcoin.  For those who don’t know what bitcoin is, it is a new distributed, de-centralized digital currency that began in 2009.  It’s a totally free market money uncontrollable by governments or central banks.

It’s the best thing since gold and silver… and in some ways even better in today’s digital age.  If you want to send someone in China $1 million worth of gold, good luck with that.  It won’t be easy if it is even possible at all… and a good chance that government seizes it.

With bitcoin you can send $1 billion to China in a few seconds, essentially for free, and if you are smart enough to cover your tracks no one would even know who sent it and who received.

Here, at The Dollar Vigilante, where we are expecting a complete collapse of all government-backed fiat currencies in the coming years, bitcoin has been like a savior sent from God!

However, in the last few weeks there has been a bit of a kerfuffle.  Some big players in bitcoin want to expand bitcoin to a bigger “block size” in order to improve bitcoin… and others do not want to do it… resulting in the potential for a “fork” in bitcoin.

This is why I said it is wonderful just to watch how bitcoin evolves.  Bitcoin has seen numerous speed bumps in its development and every time it has had one the bitcoin community has democratically gotten past the issue.

This is just the latest one and, of course, for anti-bitcoin people it is another cause to say bitcoin is not going to succeed.

They’ve been saying it for years, since bitcoin was under $30 (and subsequently went over $1,000 and is current near $230).

But, certainly, the confusion over this potential fork in bitcoin has caused the price of bitcoin to fall dramatically in the last few weeks as this 3-month chart shows.

Bitcoin rose dramatically from $225 to above $300 based mostly on the events occurring in Greece (which now is said to have 1,000 bitcoin ATMs being installed!)… but the fork issue has caused a lot of consternation.

Good friend, and one of the most respected names in bitcoin, Roger Ver, the Bitcoin Jesus, had this to say:

Currently, many people seem to be under the false impression that bigger blocks mean fewer full nodes on the Bitcoin network, leading to more centralization, and a higher likelihood of governments being able to subvert, censor, or otherwise control Bitcoin. If this were true, I would certainly oppose any increase to the block size, but I think this is clearly wrong for several reasons… In short, I think it should be clear to everyone that bigger blocks will likely mean more full nodes around the world, and therefore more decentralization, not less. This will make Bitcoin even more difficult to control, censor, or be stopped by anyone, including governments. If you want Bitcoin to become an even bigger Honey Badger of money, we need to increase the block size, not limit it.

Unlike central banking the market decides what it will or will not accept and this is another case of bitcoin’s future being decided by the market itself.

If enough people begin mining the new version of bitcoin, called bitcoin XT then bitcoin will transform and take-in the suggested improvements.  If not, then the new improvements will not be implemented.  And if a large amount of people stay with the current bitcoin structure AND enough people move to bitcoin XT then there will be two different bitcoins.

It’s fascinating to watch the market in action without any government oversight.  Any person who is interested in the concept of “money” has to be watching the evolution of bitcoin with glee as it is a realtime laboratory experiment with real players and real money involved!

In the end, however, if you are simply a bitcoin user or an owner of bitcoin you don’t need to get too involved or too worried at this point.  In fact, with the bitcoin price dropping in the last few weeks it is an excellent time to buy some if you already haven’t.

In the next issue of The Dollar Vigilante newsletter (subscribe here) we will go over all the nuts & bolts on how to purchase and store bitcoin for the beginner.

As well, we have just officially announced the dates for our annual anarcho-capitalist conference, Anarchapulco, in 2016.  At the conference numerous bitcoin heavyweights including Roger Ver, Trace Mayer and many others will be there and topics such as the bitcoin fork will be discussed as well as the world of opportunities in the cryptocurrency/blockchain sector.

Other big names in liberty will also be speaking including Doug Casey, Jeffrey Tucker, Adam Kokesh, Bob Murphy and many more.  You can see more about the event in this video.

We will also be having The Dollar Vigilante Investment and Internationalization Summit the day before the conference.

You can find our more and register at Anarchapulco.com.

A lot is going on and everything is changing, including bitcoin, so I suggest you subscribe to TDV and/or attend Anarchapulco to be on the cutting edge of it all.

You’re government registered financial advisor likely knows nothing about bitcoin… and also likely believes that you should have your assets invested in the US stock markets.

We suggest you tune them, and media like CNBC, out and tune yourself in to what is really going on before it is too late.

Originally Appeared At The Dollar Vigilante