October

Dispatch

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Contents

The Memory Hole

Redmond Weissenberger

3

Vigilante’s View

Jeff Berwick

4

Economic Review & Outlook

Ed Bugos

18

Bitcoin Core VS Segwit2x

Juan S. Galt

26

TDV Groups: Jordan—Fun, Historical, Safe

Luis Fernando Mises

36

In Closing…

Vitalik Buterin

46

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The Memory Hole

Redmond Weissenberger

A few years ago, during a

preseason NFL game, a once-star

quarterback coming off a bad

season kept sitting during the

national anthem. No one noticed.

Three weeks later, someone did,

and a maelstrom of sorts erupted.

The player quietly revealed his

reasoning: The unfair treatment of

minorities in a country that was

built on the unfair treatment of

minorities. He wasn’t a

revolutionary. This is common

knowledge. Some states, some

people, celebrate it. The USSA has

a deeply troubled history of

racism. The player then took a

knee during anthems, and there

was some talk about it, but not much.

Colin Kaepernick was left unsigned in the off-season, and it made the news, but didn’t lead the discourse. A

few players followed his lead, in various forms. Then, Donnie Trump wade into the fray, and declared such

players to be traitors, enemies of the state, disparagers of the flag and ev everything it stands for—a mixed

bag at best… you know the worst. Players revolted, rich owners panicked, patridiots declared there was a war

on ‘Merica. Talking heads argued. The story dominated the headlines.

And here’s the real problem: It doesn’t matter, and those who keep pouring gasoline on this tire fire of an

issue love it.

Players weren’t even on the field for the anthem until 2009, part of the NFL’s concerted effort to closely align

itself with the red, white, and blue. Jingoism=money. The league won’t fall, certainly not before concussions

end it. But the right has long loved these kind of arguments that the left embraces: social issues (gay rights,

tuition, abortion) that get knickers in knots while more important conversations—about the economy, about

state control, about foreign powers—remain on back pages and in back rooms. Just ask Puerto Ricans.

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Vigilante’s View

Jeff Berwick

I’ve said it before and I have to say

it again. I am shocked at how fast

everything is moving.

When we started The Dollar

Vigilante in 2010 we only wrote

one issue per month and each

month I’d have to think quite hard

about the important issues to

cover. There just wasn’t that much

happening on a month to month

basis.

Now, I have to literally filter

through dozens of important

things that have just occurred and

try to select a few of them to focus

on or this newsletter would be

100+ pages long.

The crypto space has become an entire topic on its own with so much happening that we are looking to bring

on even more people onto the TDV team with a focus on cryptos, ICOs and trading. This will likely result in

an add-on newsletter to TDV because just covering this space alone is worth 50 pages per month in research

and analysis (I’ll briefly mention a number of interesting developments further below though). Stay tuned for

more on that.

In the bitcoin space alone, ignoring all the other cryptos & ICOs, so much has occurred in just the last month.

The criminal Chinese government shut down three of the world’s largest exchanges and banned ICOs.

JPMorgan has been attacking bitcoin as a fraud - which is laughable coming from that bunch. And the New

York Agreement signatories proceeded further with the scheduled SegWit2x hard fork (which Juan Galt will

cover in depth in this issue).

You’d think with all that happening and the uncertainty surrounding yet another bitcoin fork it would have

seriously hurt the price of bitcoin.

Nope, bitcoin nearly doubled in the last month. Bitcoin just don’t care.

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BITCOIN HITS ALL-TIME HIGHS NEAR $6,000

As I write, bitcoin is trading at $5600 after hitting a new all-time high of $5,844.18 on Sunday.

For the last three months I mentioned numerous times that I liked the short term prospects of bitcoin over

the entire cryptocurrency space as a whole. And that has turned out to be correct as bitcoin has risen from a

low of 37.82% dominance in the sector in June to 54.45% now.

The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies excluding bitcoin has fallen from $97 billion at the

beginning of September to $79 billion today.

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Meanwhile, bitcoin itself currently sits near $94 billion in market cap. It was only one year ago today that

bitcoin had a market cap of just over $10 billion meaning it has increased nearly 1,000% in the last year in

both market cap and price.

Not a bad year!

I recall many TDV subscribers lamenting how they had missed out on bitcoin after it had skyrocketed to $150

in 2013 after starting the year near $15. I said then that it was definitely not too late to get in.

The same happened after bitcoin surged through $1,000. And, I said the same, “it’s not too late.” When

bitcoin hit $3,000 I said the same.

With it now near $6,000 I am telling you it is not too late. Here’s the main reason:

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This is a chart of the money supply or value of gold, bitcoin, Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, euro and the US

dollar.

You’ll notice one stands out as being miniscule. Bitcoin.

Gold is the next closest to bitcoin with a total value of approximately $7 trillion.

If bitcoin, which many including myself consider to be the digital version of gold were to one day be valued

the same as gold it would have to rise 80x to a value, in today’s dollars, of over $450,000.

If bitcoin were ever to supplant the US dollar as a currency it’d have to rise nearly two-fold above that, for

nearly $1 million per bitcoin.

Will it ever get there? Well, there is absolutely no way to know. And, if it does, it will take a long while.

Does it have the potential? Yes, absolutely. If we continue to live in a digital world and the fiat currencies of

the world’s most indebted and bankrupt companies return to their intrinsic value of $0, then bitcoin would

be the frontrunner to become the new world currency even more than gold due to all of its ease of use

benefits.

It’s not going to get there without a fight though. And I expect nothing but volatility, crisis and chaos in the

years ahead.

But consider the fact that there are only a total of 21 million bitcoins that will ever be available.

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Some data shows that there are over 15 million millionaires in the world today. What if each one of them

wanted to own just two bitcoins. There wouldn’t be enough.

And what if many of those millionaires begin to realize the entire fiat currency system was on the verge of

collapse? The panic buying that would ensue would rise bitcoin, and to a lesser extent gold, to levels so high

that sellers would eventually stop accepting fiat currencies whatsoever in exchange for bitcoin.

That’s where we could be headed.

In the meantime, though, with a rise of 1,000% in the last year a sizeable pullback is clearly possible.

Will it happen anytime soon? Truthfully, everything I am seeing says no.

Bitcoin, which once was just known by a few of us crazy people here around The Dollar Vigilante is now

talked about at every level of business, banking and politics across the world… and a lot of the conversation

is, “How do we get some?”

And, did I mention, the entire cryptocurrency space is moving forward at light speed.

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY ERUPTS

Considering I was one of the only people talking about blockchain about three years ago it is incredible to see

the speed in which this technology is accelerating.

Russia has flip flopped on bitcoin countless times now and has just announced it will be releasing its own

CryptoRuble (CR). Of course, it will be nothing like bitcoin as it cannot be mined and will be issued and

controlled by the Russian mafia (government). CR can be exchanged for regular Rubles at any time —

however, if the holder is unable to explain the origin of the CR then a 13% extortion tax will be levied.

China may be following in Russia’s footsteps as the Director of the Digital Currency Research Institute under

the People’s Bank of China hinted towards the creation of a state-backed cryptocurrency.

I expect most fiat currencies to become digital over time which will make most people accustomed to using

digital currencies… from there it is only a click away to trade in or out of bitcoin and the myriad of other

decentralized cryptocurrencies.

Coinshares, the issuer behind the world’s first Bitcoin Exchange Traded Note (ETN), has announced that they

will be launching the world’s first Ether ETN on the Nasdaq Stockholm.

The Dubai Land Department — the government arm responsible for the registration and organization of real

estate in the emirate — is now processing and implementing all real estate transactions on a blockchain, with

the ultimate goal to have all Dubai properties recorded on a blockchain within the next 2-3 years.

This is one area in which I have no trouble with the government using blockchain technology: in the

recording of property rights and activities. It will, over time, make government unnecessary in such activities

and will enable the economy to transact with more trust and less expense in the form of lawyers.

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Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has confirmed that 63% of central banks are working with

Ethereum. Moreover, 44% of public institutions and 50,000 developers are building applications on the

platform.

IBM has announced a partnership with Stellar Lumens, a blockchain-based payment processing company, to

move money across borders throughout the South Pacific. Merchants and consumers will be able to send

money to another country in near real-time, accelerating a payments process that typically takes days.

IBM hopes to use the blockchain network to process up to 60% of all cross-border payments in the South

Pacific’s retail foreign exchange corridors by early 2018. The Stellar Lumens coin appreciated 150% after the

announcement.

Basecoin, a form of stable coin, has attracted investment from some of Silicon Valley’s largest funds including

1confirmation, Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Digital Currency Group, MetaStable Capital,

Pantera Capital and PolyChain Capital.

Basecoin is lauded by investors for its unique approach to what's been called the "holy grail" of

cryptocurrency – a digital asset able to keep its value free from volatility. The basecoin protocol can be

pegged to the value of any asset or basket of assets, dynamically adjusting its market price through the

creative use of a combination of tokens.

Grid+, the blockchain-based company aiming to provide consumers with direct access to wholesale energy

markets, has partnered with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan’s largest energy utility.

TEPCO aims to leverage its partnership to learn about the potential benefits of Ethereum for decentralizing

the exchange of energy, while Grid+ hopes to learn how to refine its algorithms to purchase cheaper energy.

Winding Tree, a decentralized market for travel booking, has announced a partnership with Lufthansa, the

largest German airline. The Winding Tree ICO starts on November 1.

And, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne has confirmed that his security token exchange, tZERO, will be pursuing

an ICO sometime before Thanksgiving. Byrne suggested that the ICO could raise as much as $500m, which

would be double the record for an ICO raise.

I interviewed Patrick Byrne on Anarchast last month. You can see that here.

And, Vanuatu this month announced that it will accept bitcoin in exchange for citizenship—44 bitcoin to be

exact.

And we barely mentioned any of the ICO news. That’s a whole other area on its own.

I wanted to post this chart, though, of the main ICO’s return to date.

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As can be seen, buying a small amount of certain ICOs, which have had returns of 10x, 100x and even 1,000x

can be very profitable but you do need to be careful.

We’ll continue to cover them here and are increasing our research and analysis resources dramatically to do

so.

UPDATE ON EOS

Speaking of ICOs we have had a rough start with EOS which unfortunately, at the moment, is on the right

side (loss side) of the above chart.

Many subscribers asked me to interview Dan Larimer again and, as I always try to do, I obliged.

This interview is exclusive to subscribers for the next 48 hours and then we will put it live to the public.

Here is the video.

*This video was also

livestreamed on the TDV

subscribers only

Facebook Group here. Due to many things

happening so quickly we

don’t have time to even

email out alerts like this

but try to post if we can in

the FB group. I realize

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some people don’t like FBIbook for obvious reasons but even just having a sock (fake) account set-up to

access the group gets you access to a lot of valuable realtime info.

To summarize, Dan believes the drop in the price of EOS isn’t due to their long ICO period but mostly

attributable to the Chinese ban on ICOs. According to Dan, 50% of buying was coming from China.

I’ve seen a number of people on the internet and even amongst subscribers questioning EOS. That is fairly

normal.

I was one of the only people in the world lauding bitcoin at $3 in 2011 and still to this day people say it is a

scam, a ponzi scheme or a fraud. I obviously stopped listening to them a long time ago.

When I first featured Ethereum in January 2016 near $2 there was a lot of criticism… and while it did rise to

the $10 level fairly quickly afterwards it plateaued there for nearly a year bringing out a lot of catcalls about

how it was dead.

It wasn’t.

So, with EOS, it has gotten off to a rocky start but it is also very early stage… and I have said that. However,

by the time it is launched in June the price will likely be dramatically higher. So, you can wait and pay more

later when the world realizes what a huge advance it is or you can get in early and take a few lumps waiting

for the market to realize its value.

Dan Larimer outlined a lot of good information on EOS in our interview but afterwards, off the record, he

went into detail on many of the projects they are working on… and I can tell you, they have ‘world changing”

written all over them.

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The market doesn’t know or realize a lot of it. And EOS has an absolutely massive bankroll, in the hundreds

of millions of dollars, to bring all their projects (which are all related to or linked with EOS) to market.

And Dan has an amazing vision. He understands what the market needs and wants - which is often a downfall

of most techies - and knows how to get there.

He announced this week in the official Telegram channel that EOS will be the first blockchain with

unprecedented sub-second block times of 500 milliseconds and sub-second last irreversible block (LIB)

providing finality. In other words, the time between a user sending a transaction or a command and being

included in the blockchain could be consistently under a second compared to 10 minutes on Bitcoin.

So, with a market capitalization of $400 million currently - and a bankroll of almost the same amount - to me

this is a no brainer lottery ticket.

Sure, like any new product it may fail. But, it may also succeed… and has a good chance of doing so in my

opinion. And, if it does, we’ll laugh at how cheap it currently is for the opportunity.

In other words, stick with it and if you bought earlier at higher levels look to average down.

SUMMING UP THE CRYPTO SPACE

Like I said, A LOT is going on in the crypto space. It isn’t going to go away overnight no matter how many

times Peter Schiff says it will.

Make sure to stick with us here at The Dollar Vigilante, the only financial newsletter in the world that has

covered bitcoin and cryptos since 2011. Still to this day most financial newsletters don’t even cover this

space… or even avoid it.

Their, and their subscribers, loss. Keep this in mind with bitcoin, too. Since bitcoin was launched in 2009 it has actually been in a near-state of hyperinflation… a type of hyperinflation that was necessary in order to

widely distribute the coins. That time of high inflation is nearly over just as quite a large part of the world is

just waking up to bitcoin.

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What happens when increased demand meets decreasing supply? I think we all know the answer to that basic

economics question.

OTHER EVENTS

So many other things have happened in the last two weeks but we only have so much time and mindspace to

cover it all.

I didn’t even touch on what was quite obviously a false flag in Las Vegas. All the typical 9/11 type scenarios

have occurred along with a storyline from the LameStream Media and the government that make zero sense.

Insiders sold stock of MGM prior to the event? Check.

A surge in buying in ammunition starting on 9/11 leading up to the event? Check.

Eyewitness to multiple shooters dead? Check.

Predictive programming? Check… as I’ll outline here.

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It is well known by many that Hollywood and the music industry are largely controlled by elites. In fact it also

well known that many popular stars are used for predictive programming purposes to influence the opinions

of the masses.

It appears as if country singer Jason Aldean is one of these celebrities that is being used to convey subliminal

messages along with others.

As we have come to learn, many of the nefarious plots that are planned by elites are planned decades in

advance if not scores of years. With that in mind, there exists an Illuminati card game that contains a “Las

Vegas” card. On this card are depicted a jack and ace, something you might see in a game of black jack, along

with a picture of a sun.

The game created in 1996 has predicted multiple false flags and operations carried out by the elite including

the Pentagon blowing up and 9/11.

In blackjack, the jack has the value “10” the ace has the value 1 or 11. In this case, it appears the symbology

used on this card is conveying that the value of this ace is “1” - A is the first letter of the alphabet and in

numerology - which the elites strongly believe in - it has the value “1”.

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So when you put the two values together you end up with 10/1 - the same day the Las Vegas shooting

occurred. Coincidence?

Well, if that was all coincidence, which it very likely wasn’t, what’s more, is that Jason Aldean has a nearly

identical tattoo that depicts a jack and ace plus his initials are also “JA” the same exact letters. Also, Aldean

has a picture of a black sun in the same tattoo. Likewise, sun symbology is heavily used on Jason’s website

and album cover artwork.

As many of our enlightened readers probably know, the sun is worshiped by many secret societies, perhaps

most famously, the freemasons.

Remember, this game has existed for more than 20

years. So, the Las Vegas shooting has probably been

years in the making.

Just take a look at what went on with MK Ultra and the

history of such government operations such as Project

Mockingbird. This kind of manipulation has been going

on for a long time.

Another one of Jason’s tattoos is a black cross depicting

a red star - a pentagram - in the center of it.

And as many people know, many of the Illuminati elites

worship satan or have Luciferian beliefs of some kind.

And, I didn’t even mention the location of the event,

right in front of the giant black pyramid and numerous

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occult symbology… I get into this in a soon to be released Anarchast episode with Mark Passio.

Just remember nothing happens by accident.

Same ol’, same ol’.

If there is one heartening thing I’ve noticed is that a lot more people are questioning these events. Ten years

ago when I was adamant that 9/11 was an inside job false flag death ritual most people thought I was crazy.

Now, many agree.

And now, many are questioning these events… a positive in my opinion.

CONCLUSION

What will occur in the next two weeks prior to our next issue? I think it’s a safe bet to say “lots”.

So far we have made it through September and halfway through October with no market crash. As I write the

Dow we just crossed 23,000.

The number 23 is quite an occult number. Could the powers behind the scene be targeting 23,000 before a

planned crash?

We’ll have to wait and see. As you’ll see below, though, Ed Bugos is not giving up on “the big short.”

I’ll be in Austin for the Texas Bitcoin Conference on October 28th and 29th. You can get a discount to the

conference by using the code “Anarchast”. And then I’ll be going to Lisbon, Portugal for Steemfest from

November 1st to 5th.

And, of course, don’t forget about Anarchapulco from February 15-17th, then Cryptopulco on February 18th

and the TDV Internationalization & Investment Summit on February 19th!

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For those mostly interested in cryptocurrency, finance and investment, Cryptopulco and the TDV Summit the

next day are the events to go to.

You can check out the websites to see all the amazing speakers lined up including Trace Mayer, Roger Ver,

Bruce Fenton, Dan Larimer and many, many others.

And, unlike many other conferences most of the speakers will be around the entire week, and often poolside,

where you can casually chat. That also includes myself, Ed Bugos, Juan Galt, Luis Fernando Mises and the

rest of the team from TDV.

Phew. So much going on… but we are happy to be one of your trusted sources to help you survive and prosper

through it all.

Thank you for that! And thank you for subscribing!

Jeff Berwick

Vigilante’s View — Acapulco Bay, Mexico

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Economic Review & Outlook

Ed Bugos, TDV Senior Analyst

The Valleys Between the Peaks

I started promoting gold in 2000 when it was just $300 per ounce, and silver still traded at about $4.

I saw the gold bull market coming so clearly that, in my early years as a writer, I boldly predicted it would

reach $2000 within a year. It was the year 2000. I was looking for a move similar to what bitcoin did!

In the year ending today bitcoin is up 10-fold. It rose from $300 in late 2015 to $2000 by early spring this

year. Of course, bitcoin had less than a $5 billion market cap at $300 while the total market capitalization of

gold at $300 approached $1.5 trillion. Moreover, consider that each year, the mining industry adds 80-90

million ounces to the world’s total above ground stockpiles of gold (latest WGC tally = 187,000 tonnes, ~6

billion ounces) while it could take more than a century for bitcoin miners to finish mining its remaining 4

million bitcoins. The latest estimate I saw is that it will reach its 21 million limit in 2140.

The mining industry mines 21 million ounces of gold each quarter, and 4 million ounces every few weeks, so

don’t bother making comparisons between the price of an ounce of gold and one bitcoin with ratios like that,

and such different denominators. To soak up the new supply of annual gold, moreover, without affecting its

price, still requires roughly $100 billion of new fiat. That doesn’t move the needle much on gold because its

total market capitalization approaches $8 trillion. In bitcoin it would be quite significant.

Still, for gold, back in 2000, while I was counting on the internet, which was new and revolutionary, and

believed the gold price was manipulated down in the late nineties, I would change my prediction by 2001.

I had resigned to the reality that for the market to go straight up like that, even though I saw so clearly why it should, everyone else would have to come around to my view. So I changed my forecast. After reflecting, I

decided it would be more likely to get to my $2k target over the course of a normal bull market life cycle.

Based on some cycle research, I picked my 2013 target date.

By most standards that was still an aggressive forecast, for many suggesting doom for the world economy.

But my instinct proved correct, awakenings tend to happen gradually, and rarely in a straight line. I’m not

telling you this to brag about my on-target prediction for the last decade, I’m telling you to remind you how

easy it is to get caught up in the certainty of something whose potential you (or your group) see so clearly.

With numbers like $27k by February or even $50k over a few years swirling around out there I can’t help but

be reminded of my experience with gold when I first discovered it. It is easy to see too far ahead when the

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vision afflicts you. It’s easy to forget about the valleys in between the peaks on those clear days. I am excited

about bitcoin and the crypto space, but this is a revolutionary tech. And it has powerful enemies.

A regulatory reaction still looms. A bust in the current general investment boom is around the corner. The

statements by the IMF and the move by Russia to launch it own coin are initial warnings to the rest of the

establishment, which in some places is progressing with bitcoin and in others is taking steps to restrict it.

I am confident they will fail, but I am also confident that they will fight. What makes this call so tough is that

none of it is like anything anyone has seen before. No member of the current generation has ever seen the

free market adopt a new money in their lifetime, at least none I can think of. We know the history of gold and

silver, and how they became money. We know that in the historical record a number of goods at one point or

other functioned as the common medium of exchange - bills, sticks, cards, cows. And we know that

governments have long decreed their fiat as money. But I don’t think anyone alive today has ever seen the

widespread voluntary adoption of a new currency. That is what’s happening before our eyes. No one knows

how to value it because it is not equity or debt, it is an emerging currency, and there is no metric to value a

medium of exchange. How do you value a dollar? An ounce of gold? Money is valued based on the

participants’ demand for holding a small store of purchasing power. There’s no real metric. The amount we

hold depends on what we expect we will need to buy. If the dollar falls in value as it always does we adjust

that amount. Hence a fall in price leads to the need to hold more money (although such expectations also

come with the concurrent incentive to spend it faster). But when a new currency is adopted you can expect its

value to keep rising until it has been fully integrated into the economic system, or unless its tech fails.

Regardless, although I see bitcoin continuing higher, a bull is a bull is a bull. A healthy bull market includes

many corrections. So far we’ve seen 20-40 percent corrections relatively frequently. But there will be steeper

ones when the market gets too far ahead of itself or depending on the regulatory reaction.

There will likely be hacks, tech problems, and whatever desperate bombs lobbed by the establishment - all

helping to make it stronger. My worry about a 60-70 percent type bear market looks premature (in both

bitcoin and the stock market!). But I don’t regret selling some too early. You can’t really be certain about

these things except in hindsight. You can only see potential ahead of time, and you can have conviction.

Certainty is not an inherent feature of the market order. You almost always want to sell into that!

What They Don’t Tell Your Stockbroker

Back to the “dollar collapse” or “gold story”.

For years as a stockbroker, the gold story was obscured from me. I was taught gold bulls were deranged

maniacs, kooks, or extreme libertarians. They were right. And later I became one or all of those.

But really, this is a tale of two stories: two ways of looking at the economy or the market system. There is the

way that we are taught through regular channels like school, a course, or the media. And there is the way that

we learn through our own initiative, by asking critical questions, and working to find the answers.

For most of our critics, if you are bearish on stocks, or if you are bullish on gold, you are automatically

lumped in with the “end of the world” crowd. The doomsayers. This is taken to mean that you are betting on a

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one in a million trade: i.e., the “lights out” trade. My first boss at Richardson Greenshields, an avid buyer of

government t-bills for his clients, used to say to me, before I knew of another way to look at the economic

system, if the government went out of business, we were all screwed. I reluctantly concurred at the time. But,

these are all straw men. Just phrases for critics to demean our strategy, and framework.

Slowly but surely, as the internet was developing, I finally stumbled into the Austrian Economic school, which

is more important than many will ever admit. It is the only school of economic thought with a solid grasp of

how money and credit work, where money came from, what is “sound” money, how fractional reserve

banking undermines growth, what causes the business cycle, even how capital is formed. You would be

surprised how under nourished the Chicago school, or Keynes, or the Marxists are on all of that.

To boot, I realize there are many economic frameworks from Fisher and Minsky to Keynes and Friedman, but

I am breaking it down to two: the way it is taught to most brokers and investors, and the right way.

I’m not interested in the fairy tales of the Marxists and other theories that have long lost credibility.

Still, even a chicago-ite, which is considered to be a relatively free market economist, like Friedman, can’t tell

you how capital forms. Don’t believe me? If you care about stuff like that, as I do, watch this video.

The Fairy Tale Told By Wall Street, the Fed, and its Media Lapdogs

In the main, this is how the economy would work if it were free of government interventionism gone wild,

and some of it even resembles what is taught by mainstream and Wall Street. In this view, savings are

channeled into investment based on the level of interest rates (and time preference). Investment is made

through the financial markets, which go about building enterprises and forming new capital and wealth.

Basically that’s it in a nutshell. That’s how it should work. There are salient points, like the role of

productivity and profit increases, competition, etc. And, mainstream also teaches that profit and money is the

root of evil, that central banks exist to prevent inflation and unemployment (neither of which are inherent

features of a free market), regulators check private sector exploitation and waste, and that free and unfettered

capitalism is inherently unstable. In this world view, recessions are caused by too much production and the

“irrational exuberance” of investors - the animal spirits behind financial bubbles.

As a young broker I thought I worked within a free market that was under attack from the left, and i accepted

a lot of the views in the second paragraph as though they were correct. So I operated under a delusion, as

most of Wall Street presently does, and I accepted the necessity of various interventions.

This is the fairy tale view of the financial world, and the economy.

It is the one that Warren Buffett or Ian Telfer think they live in when they say stupid things like, “I don’t think

it’s going to be the end of the world.” It is the world that most of my peers clung to when they advised me

against betting on a “lights out” or “end of the world” type trade. Now, I know there are some of you in our

audience that believes that civilization is going to collapse. I don’t think it is. But what I want to point out is

that our strategy does not rely on it. Nor is it what we mean by the “dollar collapse” or “gold story.”

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What is The Dollar Collapse Story

In reality, savings and consumer decisions do not form the basic element of our economic system.

Prices and interest rates are determined top-down, the way it is now.

Instead of savings channeling into investment and wealth, when the central bank lowers the rate of interest

artificially, i.e., by expanding money - or credit in the case of the fractional reserve banks - it actually

discourages saving while simultaneously stimulating the demand for them (i.e., or for investment).

The central bank policy therefore crowds out bonafide savings, supplanting them rather with money created

out of thin air, which is injected into financial markets. This approach to managing the financial markets, and

through them the economic system, replaces savings as the driver of trends. It is called “forced savings”, and

because of how much money the banks have printed, it is interpreted as a savings glut. Effectively,

investment decisions are diverted from the public’s hands into Wall Street’s hands.

In this way, wealth is plundered from savers and wealth creators (as well as fixed income earners) and

handed over to speculators, government and their warmongers to waste and drive into what the Austrian

economists call “malinvestment,” or a “cluster of errors”, basically just that investment is driven into the

wrong lines of capital formation because of the false signals provided by interest rates and capital pricing.

This cluster of errors and the savings-investment imbalance is the source of the boom-bust. I know there are

a lot of theories out there about how things work. Most of them are wrong. Forget the Minsky’s, the Fishers,

the Chicago-ites, the Keynesians, and so on. You can group them all into the mainstream view.

You don’t have to take my word for it. I wouldn’t. Do your own homework. That’s the only way to get any

conviction. But economics is something I’ve studied all my life as a financial and investment analyst, and

stockbroker. In the real world, savings does not drive investment as it should. And productivity gains don’t

drive profit and growth. Not that they don’t exist. Clearly we see lots of evidence that the market system is

still innovating and producing wealth wherever it is allowed. There are still savers. There are still investors

deciding on or influencing prices and interest rates. But in our system, the banks and brokers on Wall Street

take this function over by inflating the currency, i.e., debasing it in other words, and manipulating the rate of

interest. That is, this is not a genuine free market system driven by productivity gains alone.

That is, the boom-bust cycle, our bubble economy, the large bull markets we have, all of these things are

caused not by normal healthy processes, but by the intervention into these processes by the central banks.

It is during the “boom” phase that the wealth destruction is occurring because that’s when malinvestments

are forming. Only, under the artificial conditions in prices and interest rates (and demand), they don’t look

like malinvestments. It is only when those conditions are changed, i.e., when the policy is removed, that the

clouds clear up and the investment errors pile up. This is the financial crisis. And when it happens, the world

cries out for central banks to come in and do something, so rather than allowing the malinvestments to

liquidate, freeing up resources and capital for more economic enterprise, they continue to print money,

suppress the rate of interest, and effectively subsidize the over investment in the wrong lines of production.

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This view of the way the economic system works is one aspect of the gold story. It just takes into account the

fact that the authorities manipulate the economic system via the manipulation of money and credit, rather

than assuming that productivity and savings drive it. The gold story involves the US dollar’s fall from grace as

an international reserve currency caused by these unsound policies of the central bank.

But this does not mean we are looking for a demonetization event in the dollar, or a weimar or Zimbabwe like

crack up where the dollar goes to absolutely nothing. While that could happen, and may even be likely, we are

not relying on it. It is very important for you to understand this if you are committing dollars to our

investment strategy. Our strategy exploits the system as is, not as anyone says it is, nor what the end of the

world crowd thinks it will change into. The dollar has been collapsing ever so slowly for a long time!

Another aspect is the US dollar’s starting point.

There are many worse currencies out there. That is what has given the US dollar such a long life. No matter

what the Fed does, the Argentinians or Turks or Chinese or Canadians will INFLATE more. This has been

true all of last century, and it is still true today, albeit increasingly less true. The problem for the US dollar,

besides the size of the public debt, is that it started out this trek from a gold standard and reserve currency

status. What that means is that most central banks around the world have soaked up billions of dollars by

debasing their own currencies more in order for their national exports to penetrate the large US market.

No other currency has this problem. And by problem what I mean is that no other country on this planet has

as many foreign holders of their currency or equity or government securities as does the USS of A.

The final aspect of the dollar collapse story is the true role of the central bank, and what it is used for.

The Hamiltonian vision of a central bank is as an instrument of plunder, glorification of the state, and of

handcuffing the public to the idea of taxation. The two policy goals of the central bank that the keynesians use

as a cloak for this is price stability and full employment, as explained above, which assumes the market

system is inherently unstable, like Soros and other socialists claim. But, as the Austrian school points out, it is

the manipulation of interest rates, credit, and money that produce a boom-bust, malinvestment, crisis, and

recession. The market is not inherently unstable, it just cannot function when the central authority is

intervening in important variables like prices and interest rates. These are vital data points for investors.

So the dollar collapse story is not about worthless fiat currencies going to zero overnight amid the end of

civilization. That is not the bet. The stock market is not going to zero. In fact, the Dow will very likely be at

50k in the next decade, especially if we are right, and the central bank adopts a hyperinflationary policy.

Far from being a one off lights out type bet, the dollar collapse theme is just a different approach, one that

lends itself more broadly to include assets like gold and silver or real estate, and cryptocurrencies.

The financial industry (MS), on the other hand, limits itself to equity and stuff that passes regulatory muster,

and it is a conduit for the Hamiltonian vision described above, a transmission mechanism for the

redistribution of wealth and incomes. It is part of a racket where investors are second rate customers, and

everyone else is food. The dollar collapse has been happening slowly for decades. It has been obscured by the

general unsoundness of all other fiduciary media on this planet. The abusive monetary policies of the US’s

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trading partners have kept the dollar relevant in many black markets and on the foreign exchange markets,

often confusing people into perceiving a rising exchange rate as a sign of underlying ‘strength.’

But all fiat is collapsing slowly. We just see the dollar’s collapse as being the most important when it comes to

gold because the dollar’s importance to the world is great, and importantly, it is also declining fast.

Our Big Short: Should We Surrender?!

The financial media reports that gold is weak on

hawkish views about the possible next Fed chair

hiking rates faster than the current Yellen Fed has

planned. Meanwhile, the odds of a hike in rates at

the November 1 Fed meeting are less than 2%,

lending a boost to the outlook for stock and bond

prices. Gold falls because of fears of rate hikes but

stocks and bonds rise because there are none yet.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Isn’t gold supposed to be strong because rate hikes

keep getting put off while the overvalued stock and bond market should be more afraid of rate hikes?

I mean, the precious metals are practically the only group of commodity assets that have not participated in

the $4 trillion (44%) expansion in total US money supply since 2012. It went almost everywhere except gold,

so far. So it is ironic how the press keeps explaining gold’s weakness in terms of a fear of rate hikes, while

stocks and bonds continue their upward trajectory beyond rational calculation. And there’s the thing.

Many people agree that the market’s valuation is historically high and/or unsustainable. Even the bulls’

preferred trends in earnings are priced in. As is their goldilocks economy in terms of price inflation.

Arguably, even Trump’s tax cuts are in the market, especially if you consider that their reality will fall short of

expectation. All that is just to point out that the market is beyond any rational mode of justification, the

casinos are rigged, and everyone has been pushed into them, gambling madly just to keep up with the

Jones’s. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, i wanna say; only the fish are getting rich for now.

I am very much on the verge of recommending a

stop loss on our Proshares Ultrashort ETF

(QID), which we re-entered in April again at

around the $19 level, only to watch it fall to $15.

In a sense it is only a hedge, i.e., to protect the rest

of our portfolio in the event of a crash.

And it is becoming an expensive hedge. But so far,

we must persevere in our conviction. If a hawkish

Fed is bearish for anything it will be bearish for

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US dollar denominated financial assets. That’s where the bubble is in investment.

There is no boom in mining, or bubble in mining shares today. That’s not where the malinvestment has built

up. The bubbles are in tech shares, healthcare, automobile finance, government finance, equities and real

estate generally, art, fashion, and the biggest bubble of all is in the confidence that underpins the US dollar,

the full faith and credit deal. The US central bank is afraid to hike rates because it is afraid to unnerve those

things, to undermine the boom, or to expose the government’s insolvency.

The result is that asset and capital goods prices have accelerated. Even the inflation data has been a little bit

above expectations. And yet, as reported here, the money data is pointing to a coming liquidity crunch, where

the trade off between low bond yields and high PE ratios are going to probably clash.

The end of the boom is inevitable. The difficult part is timing it, not just because the lags are variable, but

also, because much can happen in the meantime elsewhere. Which bubble will burst first: stocks or bonds?

Will the gold rally start now or wait? Will bitcoin triple before the general boom trips and stumbles? These

things all affect our current investment decisions.

For example, I like the QID trade right now a lot. But I have been early and since April, when I put it on,

bitcoin has more than tripled and even the pm sector has risen. So there’s the opportunity costs of additional

gains missed.

I have been betting that stocks will melt down first. But the PM’s put in a solid rally in 2016 well ahead of a

reversal of any kind, and they look set to continue to rally on the US dollar’s break down. It is typical for the

US dollar to break down ahead of the stock market top, although the late nineties proved anomalous, i.e.,

stocks peaked first. Rephrasing that a little, it is typical for the US dollar to turn down when the return on US

stocks declines relative to stock gains overseas, even if an actual top in dollar terms hasn’t occurred.

Now, bitcoin has been strong, and yes, both are part of the dollar collapse story, a story that is underway.

And as long as bond prices continue to remain aloft, or as long as the stock bull doesn’t roll over, both gold

and bitcoin can continue to rise. They have the momentum of the dollar’s f/x weakness on their side today.

My favorite place to stash new money right now though is the bet against stocks. I know we have been early

on this but we are fundamentally right. Don’t let the excitement about bitcoin drag you into putting it all on

that bet while ignoring the no-brainer. Bitcoin is a no-brainer in some respects, that is for sure, which is what

makes this so hard. Should we put our money in bitcoin, gold, or should we short the stock market?

I like all three. The first one has worked best, the last one has hurt. But no way the financial bubble will avert

the coming liquidity crunch. Liquidity conditions are not great enough to keep both stocks and bonds aloft.

The market is going to have to make a choice. Both are ripe for disaster when Fed policy is reversed.

This is not something that will happen next year but if it is we are still positioned. The hedge will continue to

bleed if the Fed stays dovish, but all of our other positions - our currency bets and our crypto and stock

portfolio - should continue to add to our wealth. More or less our investment strategy has been paying off.

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But the big short is up against a wall again as we have passed our stop limits on the trade and our October call

options expire worthless (Friday). I will put out a trade update early next week and hopefully find a new

trade. In the meanwhile, I really still like the QID trade. The volumes have been weak on the rallies in the

stock averages, especially the one we’re shorting (QQQ), and the rising wedge is still in place. The move is

over extended. It has been almost two years since a 10% correction in any of the major stock averages, and

this post Trump move hasn’t even seen a 5% correction in the Dow. There is no value in this market.

It is just a zombie market at this point. I have argued on countless occasions that we won’t see a euphoric top,

instead we are seeing a complacent one. I am confident in my assessment of liquidity conditions and

sentiment, of valuation, and of the causes of these extremities, as well as of the corruption of the market’s

price discovery mechanisms. I don’t see a reason to get on board this market here and I am not a perma bear,

although I do tend to be early on the major bull market tops. They are all a little bit different!

I’m working on two other reports that you will get in the next week or so in addition to the trade update I

have planned for Monday. One is the portfolio review, and I’m really excited about some of our new picks,

and the second report is our gold backed crypto report… a rapidly expanding list.

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Bitcoin Core VS Segwit2x

Juan S. Galt

Alright, it's time for Segwit2x. A fork that will stress test Bitcoin in ways that we have yet to see in any major

cryptocurrency.

Before we get into it the why and the what, let me preface the whole by saying that this is a complex issue.

Deeply complex. Therefore, when it comes to the motivations of various actors or the potential results of

what’s very likely a fork coming mid November, I’m unlikely to have all the relevant information.

I have been looking at this issue for weeks however and I’ll tell you what I see. More importantly though, I’ll

tell you how I think you can minimize your risk and potentially even profit from it, and come out on top.

What is the conflict?

Well, while I could probably write a few dozen pages about the many arguments, players and potential

motivations of the many parties involved, I’ll try to keep it brief for the purpose of this installment and

instead focus on how to minimize risk in the coming months.

The Segwit2x fork is scheduled for mid November ( the exact date is currently unknown, though 16th is

likely). The fork will double the current Bitcoin block size, bringing it to 8 MB total if you count the added

space of Segwit. Or 2 megabytes if you don’t. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll call the Segwit2x version of Bitcoin

B2X, and Core’s version of Bitcoin, BTC. At least during this article.

Bitcoin Core, the legacy development community, almost entirely disagrees with the necessity of a doubling

of the block size, given that Segwit has been deployed and its added space is starting to take effect. Currently,

more than 15% of Bitcoin transactions are Segwit transactions. And growing fast.

Source: ‘Sine Activation’ Chart

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On the other hand, the Segwit2x version of Bitcoin right now looks disturbingly likely, though it is not

guaranteed. Currently, it has 86% of the total mining power support behind it which means miners are

signaling their intent to support Segwit2x. Based on what I’ve read, however, Segwit2x is only supposed to

happen if they have more than 80% of hashing power. If it loses another mining pool it could spell the end to

this drama, for now anyway.

Source: https://coin.dance/blocks

Why are miners supporting Segwit2x in opposition to clear and loud opposition from Bitcoin’s development

community? I’m not sure. It could be that they genuinely believe B2X is better. It could be that they benefit

from larger blocks. It could be both.

It could also be that they are stuck in a game of chicken. If most miners support B2X then perhaps B2X will

become Bitcoin and thus they want to be mining Bitcoin. Something like that. I honestly don’t quite get it and

while I can explain why their behavior is confusing to me, that would probably take a few pages so I’ll spare

you for now. I will be writing more about this on my Steemit.com account though.

The most likely reason, as far as I can tell, is that they want to test market support for Bitcoin Core’s ‘Free

Open Source Software’ development process. And tested it will be.

What IS Bitcoin?

The fundamental question here is, ‘What IS Bitcoin?’. While I could certainly write a short book on this. I’ll

give you a brief version of my thinking here, which every passionate Bitcoin user will have to at some point

make a call on.

For the sake of transparency I’m very much a supporter of Bitcoin Core on this scaling issue. The main reason

being that layer two scaling solutions (like lightning networks) are the only way I see Bitcoin growing in

transaction capacity without making it prohibitively expensive to run a full copy of the blockchain.

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Without it being reasonably easy to run a full copy of Bitcoin, you can not, personally, locally, verify the

consensus rules of Bitcoin, such as the total supply of coins on the system, among other consensus rules.

Instead, users will have to trust a variety of middlemen to tell them what’s what. Most users may never run a

full node, but it is their power to do so that I think is worth defending.

On chain scaling, or bigger blocks makes sense if full nodes are compensated for their costs of operation

directly through blockchain means, like with DASH’s master nodes. Otherwise, they’ll have to have business

models that will likely be under a variety of legal, government jurisdictions.

As such, on chain scaling without block reward incentives for full nodes, as far as I can see right now, leads,

eventually towards regulatory capture.

Last, but not least. Betting on development talent and headcount alone, Core wins with a vast lead. That’s

worth something, and it may or may not be enough. That’s really what this fork is about in my honest

opinion.

Bitcoin Wallets and Exchanges

The reality, whatever the motivations of all parties involved are, is that there is very likely to be a fork.

And unlike the Bitcoin Cash fork, this one does not currently have ‘strong 2-way replay protection’. (This link

is a very insightful by the way - about the thinking behind B2X and the general conflict).

That means that users who are not educated on the matter could end up sending both their BTC and their

B2X at the same time. And so could exchanges that do not somehow make a split on their own wallets. B2X

did release an ‘Opt-in replay protection’, which exchanges may implement. Ask your exchange what their

strategy is or check their public blogs or official twitter accounts.

Some major exchanges, Xapo and Bitpay, have so far claimed they will support ‘the chain with the most proof

of work’ which could be B2X at least for a few days. This means that in the event of a fork, you’ll be getting

B2X, when you may think you are getting BTC. Confusing right? Yeah. Though this could resolve once

consensus settles and a clear winner is determined it could take a few days.

Xapo, for example, will let users withdraw either of the coins. Just make sure you know what it is you are

withdrawing or trading.

Coinbase also claims they will support both coins, though they have not yet taken a clear stance on which they

will call Bitcoin.

Bitcoin.org one of the oldest Bitcoin websites published a damning rejection of the Segwit2x ‘Upgrade’,

calling it an altcoin and naming exchanges and wallet services by name who either don’t clearly denounce

B2X or who pretend B2X is BTC.

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Here’s their list. Note however that it may be outdated already. For example, I’ve asked Bitso on Twitter what

their stance is and they claim neutrality and say users should expect the support of both chains.

Source: https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/920125076363710464

Are you unsure? Go ask your exchange. Another exchange staying neutral is Bitfinex.

Wallets like Ledger Nano S will also be implementing a similar technology.

And Trezor will be making an announcement about their strategy in the coming days. If you don’t have a

Trezor, nor a Ledger Nano S, I strongly suggest you go and get one asap. It may be the easiest way to protect

your wealth from this upcoming fork.

You can get them here.

If CryptoHWwallet.com is not fast enough shipping, get it in amazon.com or anywhere else.

You’ll want to have one of these. Mainly because they will protect you from sending both coins at the same

time. Though maybe wait until Trezor makes their stance perfectly clear before assuming you’ll have instant

access.

Ledger says they will give users instant access post-fork. Certainly on their Ledger Nano S, though perhaps on

the traditional Ledger as well and previous version. You’ll want to check with their support.

Don’t have either of these hardware wallets or can’t get one?

Well, you have a few options. The easiest by far being to Hodl.

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In other words don’t sell. Put your coins on a wallet like electrum.org’s. Or a secure paper wallet, and wait it out. At some point, a clear winner will emerge and you can get back in the game if you are a trader.

It will probably take a week or two for the dust to settle. Though worst case scenarios suggest it could be a

couple of months. Anything that drags on for too long could set Bitcoin back a year or two easily. So we’ll

definitely keep you posted. We’ll be covering this very closely here at TDV.

You can also find an exchange that you trust and whose position you support and deposit some of your coins

there. (I never recommend having all your coins in any one exchange).

Trading Strategies

I have to admit during the last fork, I got lucky. I had some Bitcoin on Bittrex and they were incredibly fast

crediting users with BCH. At which point I put an ambitious set of sell walls and one of them hit. That was

nice. The price has never been that high again.

This may work again with BTC vs B2X.

However, the question remains, which coin is the true Bitcoin?

Personally, I’m going to go with Core’s version, at least for the foreseeable future. Though at the end of the

day it is up to you.

Pick your coin and get ready to trade.

Once the fork happens, withdrawals on most exchanges will probably be halted for a few days. This will be

because of network stability concerns and slow block times, amongst a variety of things.

This will be one of the big opportunities to trade.

According to Bifinex’s futures contracts on the

Segwit2x fork, B2X (named BT2) trades at 14%

the price of BTC (BT1).

Another exchange called OKex just launched a

futures contract of their own with similar market

results.

It’s important to note that the Bitfinex futures

have been criticized as being biased towards

small blocks before and during this example.

You’ll want to review the contract and make your

own conclusion. As far as the research I’ve done,

it seems to me like a reasonable sample of the

market sentiment.

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So big discount on the price of B2X if you are a big enough believer.

Sell walls at anywhere between 0.2 to 0.7 BTC are probably a safe bet if you want to accumulate more BTC.

The same could happen in reverse, though I wouldn’t bet on it.

The reality, however, is that there’s a great deal of risk in the coming fork. A lot of things could happen that

we don’t currently foresee. Anywhere from nothing happening, aka the fork getting canceled to a service

disruption in BTC that could last up to 8 weeks or straight up dying (Unlikely).

So, it’s not at all unreasonable to simply take profits while we are testing all-time highs and wait it out.

Frankly, I’m probably going to look for an exit price closer to the end of the month.

The daily chart looks to be finding support at $5,500 USD.

At the rate, we are going, and if 5500 holds, we could test 6k USD price again and surpass it, hitting 7k USD.

By which point we’ll be so close to the fork, that if nothing changes, the fear will be palpable.

At some point, a panic is very, very likely to spread and prices will suffer a significant correction.

This will be a huge opportunity as well for traders, but you have to bet on the right horse post-fork. And do it in a good exchange that will let you trade both options.

Exchanges like Bitfinex will let you hedge against USD. Bitso against MXN.

Neither Poloniex, Kraken, nor Bittrex have made any statements that I can see on the matter yet. But you can

be sure they will soon, especially with customer pressure.

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Definitely, pick a high trust exchange with large volume and preferably some kind of fiat hedge.

The USDT tokens are a bit concerning lately since they are fundamentally centralized. But more on that some

other time. So true USD might be better.

Or you can hedge against some of the top altcoins. More on that below.

If you sell close to 7k, and no fork happens and panic never occurs, great. You protected yourself against

some serious potential risk. If it does, you’ll have taken some good profits quite high.

Altcoin Hedges

I have to say, I’m not feeling very confident on most altcoins lately. Not in the short term anyway. It’s time to

see what they can deliver.

That said, there are a few reasons why coins like LTC, DASH, and ETH might hold even with an implosion of

Bitcoin.

First of all, the LTC community has emerged from the recent drama to be big supporters of Bitcoin Core.

That’s good news for stability arguably. So if the fork becomes a problem, who knows, perhaps Core devs will

move to LTC, though this is without a doubt wild speculation.

Nevertheless, LTC has very high volumes as far as cryptos go and is well distributed as far as exchanges and

geography. So it is not a bad bet.

Against BTC on the weekly, LTC just bounced off the critical psychological support.

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On the weekly against USD, LTC looks to have bounced off the 50 USD support line as well and it is testing

the downtrend from last top. It looks to be stuck on a wedge which could lead to a new rally.

DASH has been holding the 300 USD price for a while, though it is testing it and has certainly corrected from

the all-time high. It looks to be on its way to a triangle pinch towards the beginning of 2018.

It has however been falling behind on the Bitcoin price.

On the weekly against BTC, DASH is getting close to the critical support levels it bounced from not long ago.

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If Bitcoin implodes because of governance issues, DASH and its mighty marketing treasury should be able to

cash in on the opportunity. So also not a bad hedge.

Last but not least, Ethereum is about to do a high consensus fork which will implement Zcash grade

anonymity.

That’s a big deal. While the improvement is probably already priced into a significant degree, assuming no

disaster hits Ethereum in the coming weeks, it could be a reasonable hedge and it is quite large as far as

exchange support, global distribution and volume as well.

On the weekly against USD, it looks like it could stay within the 300 - 400 USD range for a while.

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Against BTC on the weekly, it just tested 0.05, and held, for now. Though the bullishness of BTC has made

the 20 week moving average turn to the downside.

The yellow price tickers are BTCUSD on the weekly.

As Jeff said above, a LOT is going on… and no one covers it like us here at TDV. So continued to stay tuned!

Juan S. Galt 

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TDV Groups: Jordan—Fun, Historical, Safe

Luis Fernando Mises

Luis: Dear subscribers

from the Dollar Vigilante,

today I am going to

interview a friend of ours,

Nasser, from Jordan. And

it is very interesting

because, as everybody

knows, I’m a bit of a geek,

a nerd, and Nasser was

asking me, “So what do

you want to know about

Jordan?”

And I’m like, “Well, I love

history because I’m a geek

and because from the

Bronze Era and the

Ottoman Empire with the

Romans and everything,

there is so much good stuff there, and I just want to know how that is still affecting it, and what is there to do,

and all of those kinds of things.” So, Nasser, thank you so much for this interview. Awesome.

Nasser: You’re welcome, Luis. Anytime. My pleasure.

Luis: You know, one of the things that I was reading is that Jordan is one of the most stable countries in that

area, and they are one of the one or 2 that have a simultaneous treaty with Israel.

Nasser: Yes.

Luis: But at the same time, there are also some issues because you guys have taken so many people from Iraq

and from other places, so just tell me a little bit. What are your thoughts about where the country is in the

stability for work and visiting and all that? Is it relatively safe still to go there and hang out?

Nasser: Yes, it is very safe to come and hang out in Jordan. It is a very beautiful country. We have good

relations with all of our neighboring countries, although we have people who can––there are some conflicts

in the region, like from Iraq, from Syria––as well as Palestinians are in the region. Jordan is very well known

for its safety and stability, and maybe you are going to find that a little bit of a surprise to you, but we actually

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have a lot of tourism. I live in Amman, the capital. You can see expats, international people, everything, and

the bars, and the restaurants, and everything is fine.

Luis: The capital where you live––you know, it is probably like any other big city, where it has a lot of

wonderful things and museums and all of that. What is the food like? That’s something whenever I asked

people what they miss the most, they say, “Well, I miss the food.” What kind of food do you see out

restaurants in the wonderful city?

Nasser: Well, the most famous dish around here is called mansaf. It is actually like heavy yogurt with big

chunks of meat and served over rice, and you have to eat it using your hands. That is the number one––yeah.

With your hands. You make smooth balls with your hand and eat it with your hands. It is the most famous

dish in Jordan.

But we have all the other dishes, like basically rice is an ingredient that most people use in all of the

dishes––all the Jordanian dishes. But regarding like, for instance, the breakfast, like bread, for example,

Labneh. Labneh is kind of yogurt. It is done from the yogurt. It is very delicious. For example, it is actually

like the theme––I don’t know what to call it––something like oregano, but it is made a certain way. It is very

delicious.

The cheese here is really good. We have a halal cheese. I don’t know if you’ve heard about Jordanian halal

cheese, if the cheese is any good.

Luis: Certainly.

Nasser: And we have a very well-known sweet. It is called knafeh. All cheese with sugar, and then there is

the cross over. It is perfect, delicious. You should come and try it someday.

Luis: I should go and try it. Absolutely. You know, a lot of times because I don’t have a lot of time to cook, I

eat a lot of Mediterranean-style foods, like just a bunch of hummus and olives and crackers and cheese, and a

bunch of salad. So I would

not have any problems

being there for a long time.

Nasser: Yes, well, there

are lots and lots of

restaurants over here.

There is also a shawarma. Chicken shawarma and

beef shawarma are also

very well known dishes for

the majority of the

population over here.

Luis: That is very cool, and

you know it is even better

because it is fresh and

37 www.DollarVigilante.com

really––you know, it is kind of like here in the States whenever I go eat Mexican food, it is not really Mexican

food.

Nasser: Yes.

Luis: I am sure over there, it is 20 times better than over here.

Nasser: It is extremely cheap as well.

Luis: Let’s talk about cost. What is the cost of going out to eat?

Nasser: It depends where.

Luis: Sure.

Nasser: And it depends on if you’re in the capital, Amman, or if you are in one of the more rural areas.

Amman is one of the most expensive cities in the whole region to live.

Luis: Let’s talk about it. Where in your city? What does that cost on average? I’m not talking about five-star

restaurants––something where you would go twice a week or once a week kind of thing.

Nasser: It also depends what parts of Amman. Like there are the Western parts of Amman and the other

parts of Amman. If you’re in the expensive parts of Amman––let’s say you go to grab a sandwich, which is a

sandwich made of chickpeas with some hummus and salad. You will have a dollar for the sandwich. Yeah.

That’s what I mean. It is extremely cheap, but you can get that in other parts of Amman for $.15, $.20.

Luis: $.15?

Nasser: Yes $.20. Yes. Good food with lots

of hummus. But I mean as well, you can find

the upscale restaurant, or you can find the

Jordanian dishes like they put kebabs on

everything. Four courses is going to cost

around $70 to have the meal.

Luis: $70?

Nasser: 70. Yes 7-0.

Luis: That is very pricey.

Nasser: The price depending on the

restaurant, the cuisine, depending what part

of Amman you are living at. But let’s say an

average Big Mac meal is under $7.

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Luis: Okay. That is a good index. But I also at the same time––American food is more expensive abroad than

it is in the States, so you know people that go to McDonald’s, they are not necessarily poor people, right?

Nasser: No. In Jordan it is one of the rare places that serves burgers.

Luis: Exactly. Yes.

Nasser: So it’s not like the McDonald’s back in the States. That’s the truth.

Luis: Yes. Here it is like shit food usually.

Nasser: I know. Yes.

Luis: Abroad it is more like where fancy people go on the weekends.

Nasser: Not where fancy people go on the weekends, but I would say middle-class to lower upper class. But

really everyone eats McDonald’s. They have fast delivery. It is a very good taste, and it is reasonably priced.

Luis: That is pretty interesting. I love that. Now, one of the things also is that you were mentioning there is a

lot of rice. Is that related, because it is pretty arid? There are not a lot of places to do horticulture, like

growing a lot of vegetables? Or how does that work?

Nasser: No. We have all these farms, and they brought all the vegetables over here, but I think it is

something related to the culture. It is just a cultural thing, I think. All of the dishes have rice. Almost all of the

dishes offer some rice on the side. At least that is how I see it, and I think a lot of Jordanians would agree

with me. I mean, it is either rice or bread.

Luis: I eat both everyday.

Nasser: Sure. As long as you are

enjoying your service, you do that.

Luis: I do think it is a cultural thing

because without a piece of bread or

without a tortilla, I cannot start eating.

Nasser: Yes. I miss the tortillas.

Chipotle was my favorite restaurant

back in the States.

Luis: Oh really? Where did you live

when you were in the States?

Nasser: I lived in Fairfax, Virginia. I

did my Masters degree over there at

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Virginia International Universities. I was there for around 3 years.

Luis: That is pretty cool.

Nasser: It was cool. It was fun.

Luis: Now, how––this is even more interesting now. So okay. That tells me that your family were at least

medium or upper class, especially if they sent you to another country, and especially the States.

Nasser: Yes. My family is middle to upper class, yes.

Luis: I mean, I love this. Whenever you came back home, how did that help you work-wise to have a degree

from the States?

Nasser: To be honest, nothing. Like I used to work with the same organization before I went to do my

Masters degree. I came back, and I spent one year with a different organization, and then I went back to my

previous job. So when I compare things, in Jordan, with the current organization, I would have had a better

position with a better salary.

Luis: That is so funny, because I tell people here in the States that most college degrees are worthless.

Nasser: Yes. It is worthless. I did the Masters degree, and an MBA in global logistics as a major, and then an

MBA in international business management as a minor, and I am working in politics in Jordan now. So that

was nothing to do with my studies, you know?

Luis: That’s always the case––or not always, but most times.

Nasser: I agree. Definitely. Yes. That is definitely the case.

Luis: And then you spend like

$150,000

Nasser: $120,000, to be precise.

But I mean, when I went to the

States, my aim was not to come

back to Jordan and find another

job. My aim was to have the

experience of living abroad for a

couple of years.

Luis: Okay. That is a better

perspective. Thank you.

Nasser: You’re welcome, man.

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Luis: But you could’ve done that for cheaper than $120K, no? But maybe that was the way to get a visa to

come to the States?

Nasser: Well, I just applied online for University in Virginia. I got accepted, and I went to the embassy and

gave them the application and everything, and they issued me a visa. I don’t know a way to study abroad

other than that, but for the sake of the degree, for the sake of the experience, it was a very pleasant

experience, let me say.

Luis: Indeed.

Nasser: It was very cool. It was great. Not at all.

Luis: No. No. No. That’s great, and Virginia is very pretty, very green, and lots of cool people. Mountains.

Nasser: Yes.

Luis: Now, the cost of living house-wise––your perspective will be a little bit more like normal for people

here also, so what would it cost to have a house

with––I don’t know––a

couple of rooms?

Nasser: Well it depends

on your definition of a

house. Is it an apartment

or is it like a townhouse?

Luis: Tell me whatever

you think. I’m curious of

both.

Nasser: Let’s say if you

wanted to buy a

two-bedroom apartment

in the center of Amman, it is going to cost around

$130,000. That is in the

center of Amman. If you want to buy a townhouse in Amman, it depends on the size of it, and it depends on

the land because the land is very expensive in the center. It can go to $2 million or $3 million.

Luis: Wow.

Nasser: Well, I mean, if you drive, let’s say, an hour and a half to the Amman north of Jordan, you can build

the same exact house that cost you $2 million for $100,000, let’s say.

Luis: Holy smokes.

41 www.DollarVigilante.com

Nasser: Yes.

Luis: And it is safe?

Nasser: Yes. It is like in the States––although life revolves in Amman. Like if you go in the other areas, you

will not find bars or you will not find music centers or whatever. It is only houses and schools. They don’t

have quite as fine schools––public schools. Life is way different than in Amman. Very boring, let’s say. There

are very few people in Amman who speak good English. It’s only the people who live in the center of Amman

who are well educated. Many of them even think differently than other people who live in Jordan at the

country.

Luis: That is pretty cool. That is interesting.

Nasser: It is.

Luis: I mean so the idea would be to

just go to Jordan and go to the capital

city and at least hang out. I’m sorry. Do

you guys have Airbnb as well?

Nasser: Yes, sir. We do. I actually have

one room in my house on Airbnb. I

keep posting it on Airbnb.

Luis: Let’s talk about that for a

moment. That is a surprise for me. How

much do you charge for a room in your

house?

Nasser: Around $50 per night.

Luis: That is pretty reasonable. You are in the center you said, right?

Nasser: Yes. I am in the center. I live in a three-bedroom apartment.

Luis: Nice.

Nasser: OK, so my house is a three-bedroom apartment in the center of Amman in the area called Rabieh. If

I were to sell my house, it would go for around $185,000-$200,000.

Luis: Wow. So it’s a house and not an apartment?

Nasser: It is an apartment, but we call it house.

Luis: Right. Yes, of course.

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Nasser: But it is a

three-bedroom apartment.

Luis: Great. And how many

bathrooms?

Nasser: I have 2 ½ bathrooms.

Luis: Wow. That’s pretty neat.

Nasser: It is. It is. So you’re

welcome to come and join us for

free, my friends.

Luis: Oh, for free? At least I will

cook for you.

Nasser: Okay. That is a good

deal. It really is.

Luis: Well, Jordan is kind of landlocked, so do you have access to the river still? I can’t remember exactly.

Nasser: We have access to the Red Sea.

Luis: Red Sea.

Nasser: At Aqaba boundary, but it is a small access. We don’t have like any huge land on water.

Luis: And is that still like a tourist destination?

Nasser: It is a tourist destination, but it is a not a very well attended destination. But we heard recently that

we are having Russians coming over to Aqaba since there has been some shift and they are not going to Egypt

anymore. I haven’t been in Aqaba in a long while because it cost me more to go to Aqaba. It cost me less, for

instance, to travel to Egypt, Lebanon, or even Turkey to spend the weekend. It would cost less than to drive

my car four hours and go stay at Aqaba.

Luis: Wow. That is another thing that I was remembering––that you guys are in the center of so many

countries also and kind of within driving distance.

Nasser: Yes.

Luis: So, what are the options that you can give there too?

Nasser: Now I don’t have any options, but like I said, before this year, I used to get in my car, drive 3 ½ or 4

hours, be in Damascus, have lunch, and go back to Jordan.

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Luis: That is amazing.

Nasser: Yeah. Lebanon is about an

eight hours’ drive. Iraq is a little bit

longer––not to Iraq, but to Iran it would be 12, 16 hours drive to get

there. But all the countries we are

bordered with have their current

issues.

Luis: Oh.

Nasser: But I mean we can drive to

go to Palestine, but I need a visa to

access Palestine, you know? So in a

sense, it is not like you are just bored

and say, “Hey, let’s go to Lebanon and

come back” or for lunch or whatever. It’s different.

Luis: Yes. Certainly. I can understand that. Well, that is kind of fortunate. Part of that––you know, how do

you feel? Let me ask you about that. Oh, those Russians all around that, and all those conflicts are there. Does

that create a sense of fear or are most Jordanians kind of okay and not sons?

Nasser: Zero fear. Just everyone is moving happily. Everyone is fine.

Luis: That’s excellent.

Nasser: We trust our Army. We trust the Army at the borders. We are safe if something happens to Jordan.

We have good relations with the US. I think we have good relations with all of the countries.

Luis: That is excellent. So anything else that you think I may be missing that you would like to talk about?

Nasser: Like in Jordan basically?

Luis: Yes.

Nasser: Well, I would say there is corruption in the government. Sometimes you have corruption, but most

of the huge businesses are owned by particular families––like it is more of a monopoly system over here. But

you don’t know someone or you’re not from this tribe or this clan, you won’t be able to do this kind of

business. Other than that, I believe Jordan is a very safe country. It is a very nice destination for people to

visit. That’s it.

Luis: As far as that situation, that’s everywhere. It is even here in the States. So how does that affect you

personally? Is that something where you have to meet somebody or pay somebody to be part of something?

44 www.DollarVigilante.com

Normal people, does that affect them? Like for instance, it you were saying in your job that you’re moving up.

If you get to the top level, can you not go further because of that?

Nasser: Not in my field, but I worked with the National Democratic Institute for international firms. It is an

international NGO that is working in Jordan, and we take some of our money from the USAID, so my case is

different. But I mean, like if you are not the son of this tribe and you want to get a particular place in the

government, you just come here. If you are, for instance, from pastoral origins, you will have to do everything

possible. If your ancestors are from Palestine, you will not be able to get a higher rank if you’re in the military,

for example, or in the intelligence or whatever. There’s this conflict between Jordanian Jordanians and

Jordanians from pastoral regions. Even in football matches, there is the local Jordanian team and the local

Palestinian team. Every match, there are fights, and after the match, you go on to social media and see things

posted about Jordanians, and Palestinians, issues, and everything. It is sad.

Luis: That is sad, because the entire country has 9 million people and about 2 million people are

Palestinians.

Nasser: Even more. Even more. I believe it is nearly 50-50 right now.

Luis: Oh really?

Nasser: Jordanian, Palestinian––I think even though they don’t have a Jordanian passport, they do have a

Jordanian passport, but their family is originally from Palestine. So his grandfather was born in Palestine, but

then all of the family moved to Jordan. He has a Jordanian passport and everything, but usually when you

say, I am Jordanian,” they always ask you, “Are you Jordanian or Jordanian Palestinian?” So we have this

kind of conflict in the regions. It is a little bit complicated on this issue, but it is getting better with time, I will

say. It is not like 5 or 6 years when we have this difference.

Luis: Okay. That is good to know. But even then, you know, for people visiting from abroad, it doesn’t really

affect them. Just stay away from the soccer stadium whenever there is going to be a––

Nasser: You only have to stay away if it is those teams versus each other. Other than that, no. It doesn’t

affect anyone. Not at all.

Luis: Awesome. While I am so grateful for this interview, Sir, and I hope you have a fantastic afternoon.

If you want to join the main TDV Group, please either send me an email or a private message

on Facebook so I know you are a subscriber.

If you want to join the main TDV subscribers’ only Facebook group click HERE. To see a list of all worldwide TDV Groups click HERE.

To join the Jordan group click HERE. If you have any questions about the groups or if you’d like to start one in your area contact Luis Fernando

Mises at lfernando@dollarvigilante.com.

45 www.DollarVigilante.com

In Closing… Vitalik Buterin

I think that in general consortiums are a good way to

build a partnership between large companies. In theory,

they can be quite beneficial for one simple reason the

main purpose of Blockchain applications is to create a

decentralized system which is free from an absolute

control by only one entity. So, it doesn’t really make

much sense for one company to work with Blockchain,

however, if a number of companies establish a

partnership, results won’t take long to wait.

There are advanced governments all around the world.

Central Banks in Estonia, UK, Russia are testing

cryptocurrencies and their potential. Actually, people

interested in cryptocurrencies are everywhere, but

another question here is how to convince others to start

learning about it at least, and then make them

understand that this thing should be allowed and not

forbidden. At this point, it all looks bright I think, we will

see what happens next.

Vitalik Buterin is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as a co-founder of

Ethereum and as a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.

Disclaimer: The Dollar Vigilante needs no disclaimer. Everything we say here is what we believe. Furthermore we need no disclaimer because we believe that all nation states, governments,

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