It was just an example. There is the case though of that guy robbed at gunpoint in (I think NYC) last week.
Personally I know 2-3 separate people who cashed out (hundreds of thousands) of $fiat and bought gold as they were convinced shit would hit the fan some years ago, and they all independently got robbed of their gold, which was stored in their big residences.
Some spoke too much (if you have half a mil in gold stored in a vault at home, you should probably keep quiet about it), some trusted too many people with the info .. in the end it came back to bit them.
I don't think it's being paranoid that you choose not to post on facebook that you will be on bank A branch B day C time D to withdraw $10000 which you intend to store under the mattress as you no longer trust the bank (and if you think this is the stuff of conspiracy, I suggest some reading on recent events in Greece, Cyprus and elsewhere). I use the example of facebook as it is a public space, so I think it's not unfair to compare it to BTS 2.0 in that aspect.
Now I can imagine that maybe you live in a very nice place full of people who are very well off, otherwise I cannot see how you cannot see that advertising such things for everyone to see is bound to cause trouble.
If you doubt this then may I suggest you get the most expensive watch, suit, pair of shoes and sunglasses you can don, pack a briefcase with $10K, and happily walk around in a poor neighborhood.
May I suggest the Favelas in Rio if you are unsure where to conduct this experiment.
And on the interest of the financial/personal transparency you say you support, may I request that you post the following here:
- Your full name, registered address, government id#, social security # and country of birth.
- All of your bank accounts IBAN, plus read-only access to any and all online banking/brokerage accounts you possess.
- Your monthly salary, plus, if you keep such records, a detailed listing of your expenses.
- The estimated value of all your crypto currency/assets in USD.
You're going a little overboard here, financial transparency is not the same thing as giving away all your personal identification information. I'm for transparency but I'm not stupid. Some of the info you ask for is already available though, my identity is public on github, and my salary is (starting wednesday next week) my delegate pay. As an example of real-life financial transparency: in Norway everyone's tax statements, which include their net worth, are publicly available on the internet. Does this mean every rich person walks around with a body-guard worried that thugs will force them to hand over their money? No, it does not..
Your friends were stupid about their gold, storing expensive stuff in an expensive house makes you an easy target as houses get robbed all the time, and people also get forced to withdraw money from ATMs for example quite regularly.
Your facebook example also has no relevance imo, it's quite normal not to post that kind of information, nor does BTS or Bitcoin make that kind of information available.
Even under BTS 2.0, like with Bitcoin, you do not need to openly link your identity to an account, but in the end even if you do it's not much different from what already happens in the real world: we generally know who's rich or not, criminals do not need to be able to read your bank statement to know whether you make an interesting target or not.
If you prefer being cautious/anonymous, then take some precautions, use best practices, don't trade on centralized exchanges and don't tie your identity to an account etc.
Well, think about it, if you think fiat will fail spectacularly, then odds are you don't trust the bank to hold your gold either. History shows us that in all likelyhood it would be confiscated anyway.
They were stupid not because they hid the gold in their home, but because they spoke too much about it. Someone ratted out and probably got a nice commission out of it..
That's nice about Norway, one of the richest countries in the world where the big mama government caters to mostly everyone in case they happen to not be very well off. Try something like that in Brazil for instance... I doubt it would go so smoothly.
The Facebook example was an allusion to the fact that it is not paranoid behavior but merely caution to not be too upfront about ones'
private financial life.
As for knowing who's rich/well-off or not, I respectfully disagree; Plenty of well-off people live well below their means, I've learned; many I know you would mistake for a nobody if you saw them on the street.
There is beauty to that (I'm pretty well off vs the average in this country myself).
Beauty that would not be possible should full-scale personal financial transparency come about.
I thouroughly enjoy being left alone to my own devices, living in an unassuming way for the most part. No one has any clue of how well I am, and that suits me very well. When I was younger and spoke about such things, it generated a sort of attention that I found unwelcome. Not to mention considerable envy, too, which was never my goal.
I'm sure this will be different in a place where mostly everyone is well off. But realize it isn't so everywhere.
I will use best practices and I will be cautious, as I always have been, it's just that we did have a solution that did work with the proper precautions, and it was extirpated with little warning; It'll make conducting private affairs in BTS harder in the future, and my point is that this is unecessary.
I'm looking forward to what Stan/BM may have to add here given his statement in the other privacy thread minutes ago.