Executive Summary

• The critical value of scarcity
• Understanding the utility of the blockchain
• Will (can?) governments ban cryptocurrencies?
• A coming geometric explosion in the price of cryptocurrency?

If you have not yet read Part 1: Understanding The Cryptocurrency Boom available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

In Part 1, we surveyed the exciting but confusing speculative boom phase of cryptocurrencies. Here in Part 2, we will contextualize this mad swirl by running it through two filters: scarcity and utility.

What’s Scarce? Scarcity Creates Value

Regardless of one’s economic ideology or system, scarcity creates value and abundance destroys value.  When we say supply and demand, we’re really talking about scarcity and abundance and the rise or fall of demand for the commodity, good or service.

In classical economic theory, scarcity is met with substitution: ground beef too expensive due to relative scarcity? Buy ground turkey instead.

But this model has weaknesses.  There aren’t always substitutes, or the substitutes are more expensive or problematic than what is now scarce. 

As a general rule, profits flow to any scarcity of goods and services with high utility value.  We value what’s scarce and useful, and place little value on what’s abundant and of limited utility.

Currency has three basic functions: a store of value (it will retain its purchasing power over time), means of exchange (we can use it to trade goods and services, pay debts, etc.) and as an accounting mechanism to track assets, debts, income, expenses and exchanges/trades.

We assume all currency has this function, but only currency that is easily divisible and easily tradable enables easy accounting.  If a notched stick is a unit of currency, and one stick buys a pig, what do I use for purchases smaller than a pig?

In today’s world, a currency must be….

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Executive Summary

• The case for gold's manipulated price, and how that can be used to work to your advantage
• Calculating the "floor" beneath which gold will likely not fall
• The coming Great Wealth Transfer, which almost certainly will occur in our lifetime
• How much to invest in gold
• How to invest in gold
• Exit strategies: when will it make sense to sell your holdings? And what should you exchange them for?

If you have not yet read The Screaming Fundamentals For Owning Gold, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Market Manipulation

Before we can address the idea of storing some of your wealth in gold (and/or silver) we have to visit the topic of market manipulation. As many of you are aware this is an area of exceptional controversy, although I am not entirely sure why given the distressing laundry list of recently proven, and often grotesquely brazen, market manipulations performed by big banks in many other market areas.

Big banks have been proven or alleged to have manipulated energy markets, LIBOR, currency markets, the global oil market, and aluminum, among other things and all of these transgressions happened after they got caught engaging in forgery and fraud during the mortgage swindles of 2005 to 2007.

On one side of the manipulation debate, we might place the Gold Anti-Trust Action (GATA) organization alleging constant official manipulation to suppress the price of both gold and silver, and on the other we might place Jeff Christian, managing director of the metals research firm CPM, whose position is that all price movements can be explained by ordinary market forces.

I happen to be somewhere in between those views as I think both legitimate and illegitimate forces are part of the landscape. But I am heavily tilted towards market manipulation as the explanation for why gold (and silver) tend to move downwards violently from time to time and why the prices for each are not higher than they currently are.

The SEC has a clear definition of market manipulation and I’ve reproduced it here but swapped out the words ‘security’ and ‘stock’ with ‘gold’ to make it that much clearer:

Manipulation

Manipulation is intentional conduct designed to deceive investors by controlling or artificially affecting the market for gold. Manipulation can involve a number of techniques to affect the supply of, or demand for, gold. They include: spreading false or misleading information about gold; improperly limiting [or expanding] the supply of gold; or rigging quotes, prices or trades to create a false or deceptive picture of the demand for gold. Those who engage in manipulation are subject to various civil and criminal sanctions.

(Source)

I also added the two words "or expanding" because that condition also applies to commodities. 

How likely is it that some firms have been trading in gold in such a way as to create a false, rigged, or deceptive picture of gold (and silver) prices?  It’s all but proven in a court of law, but don't hold your breath waiting for that final proof, as the US court system has vigorously defended banks from such lawsuits for decades. 

I also happen to believe that gold is officially suppressed in price because it's what I would do if I were at the helm of the Fed and cared only for bolstering confidence in the dollar specifically, and fiat currencies generally, making the stock market a more attractive alternative, and also lending credence to political and monetary decisions (for the record, I am merely placing myself in the mind of the enemy here). Given that set of mandates, I would order up some hefty gold suppression because gold has a very bad habit of casting a bright light on rotten monetary and fiscal policy. 

Suppressing the price of gold just makes so much sense that I would consider it a form of derelict strategic weakness if the Fed et al. were not doing it.

One of the more important times to suppress the price of gold would be when…

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