Ha, now your talking. I should dust the cobwebs off my still and get it up and running. Plenty of wood to burn in the paddock for a bonfire and a big sky to survey. I think I will stick with silver and gold, something that I can understand and hold. Perhaps after a few drinks it will all make sense...
If it doesn't.... have a few more, at least then you will know why it doesn't....works for me anyway :lol: Silver and Gold, don't need no power to understand or follow it, wont lose it overnight unless you have an unfortunate fishing accident , an ounce is an ounce is an ounce. Wont get hacked, DDOS'd, have to wait in line, compete with Pyrites tcepp,xx etc, and you can find it with a simple to use detector instead of mining it in your bedroom or lounge with a 7920 whosamacallit thingamyjig what needs it's fan clocked or some such thing. I much prefer my Gollum moments with physical bars and coins than digits in a virtual meat wallet.
So a question for those who actually get the whole phenomena, what percentage would you guess is speculation as opposed to genuine use IE: transfer of funds, buying power etc ?
Hard to say right now, but no doubt there is heaps of speculation. That being said, plenty of new users coming in, new people jumping on board and not only for the speculative argument. It has been getting a bit of media attention recently, and there are people who like the idea behind it (maybe even more so in the light of the Cyprus events?) and who want to get started with it, even if not investing much at these prices. Since this is far from being mainstream, I believe a majority of the new participants like the concept behind it even if they are also drawn by the speculation going on. Part of the genuine uses would - I believe - also include extracting wealth out of the system, even if only a tiny fraction.
Computer software is a real, tangible thing. Computer software as an uncopyable commodity is revolutionary, and that's what cryptocurrencies are.
So how if you are/were into Bitcoin big time could you convert it to fiat without notice ? I'm not trying to poke holes, I am genuinely interested in how one could conceivably convert say X amount (large funds) from somewhere say like Cyprus/wherever and then have it reappear as fiat somewhere else legally with no questions or obligations such as tax or CGT etc or some Gov't organisation asking questions on the other end of the transaction ? Multiple wallets/accounts/withdrawals/share purchases or such? or would the funds be in some sort of limbo land until you find a personal option, if the latter is the case would such funds also be prone to the rise/subsequent risk in value until they are converted to a perceived solid currency at the other end ? Also as an aside, could the current rise in value of bitcoins and associated crypto currency's also be seen as a flight from risk that is via the manipulation of precious metals not so obvious to the mainstream markets ? Most see the fall of Gold in the markets as a lack of confidence rather than a conversion to physical from paper while it is obvious much physical is being withdrwan. This thread is a really interesting juxtaposition of Stackers V Traders v Speculators to me .
I don't think 8 decimal places is anywhere near enough. Considering that bitcoin value increases by 7500% in a single year. Today a bitcoin is worth $240, right? This means the smallest possible unit of bitcoin is worth $0.00000240 today. Let's assume a "modest" bitcoin value increase of 1000% per year, how much will the smallest possible bitcoin unit be worth in 10 years? $0.00000240 * 10^10 = $24000 Whoops! Now that is not gonna work out very well, is it? Not quite what I would call a sustainable monetary system... As I see it, there are three factors driving the price of bitcoins at high pace: 1. As bitcoins become more popular, demand for bitcoins increase. Most likely exponentially, since it is a global phenomenon. Much like other global digital phenomenons. 2. The payout to miners decreses over time. 3. Enormous amounts of the theoretical 21M bitcoins are already lost forever, and more bitcoins are lost every day. Lots of people tried mining for fun in the early days of bitcoin, but got tired of it and then forgot where they stored their key to the 50 bitcoins they got. Bitcoins lost forever. Every day people lose their keys for wallets containing small amounts of bitcoins. Why be careful with how you store a key to a wallet cointaining a few cents worth of bitcoins? Because of these factors, the price of bitcoins will HAVE to rise very quickly, which causes bitcoin to hit the solid brick wall problem of only 8 decimal places quite soon. When enough people realize that bitcoin will die a horrible death in just a few years, the bubble will burst big time. Bitcoins have another problem: It is a fiat currency, like any other. It is not based on a limited resource. Yes, we have heard it a thousand times: "There can be only 21M bitcoins". That is actually not quite right. Yes, the current bitcoin software restricts payouts to miners, and has a top limit of 21M bitcoins. The bitcoin network is based on democracy. If a majority of the bitcoin miners in the world decide that they want to change the payouts and raise the top limit, they can. It is democracy. And the decision becomes real easy in a few years when the 21M limit is approached. At that time the miners will no longer be payed for keeping up the bitcoin network. Instead they will start asking for transaction fees from the bitcoin users. If the bitcoin miners at this time tells the users that they will have to pay for each transaction, OR download a new bitcoin software which raises the 21M limit. Will the majority chose to raise the limit? Of course they will. and when the majority has updated their software, the rest will have to follow, or they will be unable to use their bitcoins. It is just like any other fiat currency. Our democratically elected poticians have the power to print as much money as they want.
If you have got your hands on some litecoins and are wondering what to do with them try this game and see if you can win some more, I ended up 0.5 litecoins up http://kamikaze.litecoinland.com/ref/5275 p.s. the game has nothing to do with me
Your Position in the Verification Queue 2800 - 1300 new MT GOX verified customers coming on board a day - wonder if you got in verification queue today what position would you be.
What about war or other disasters? The Internet can easily experience a "split". If such a split persists for an extended period of time, the bitcoin network will also bli splitted quite seriously. When the problem is solved, thousands or millions of verified transactions will be reversed.
Do you think the commission fee is higher or lower than bitcoin deflation over the verification queue waiting time?
100% wrong, the limit can't be increased. $230 AUD today, I'm not going to argue with you though, I might go shopping instead. :lol:
Could you back that statement up with some facts please? When a new block is created in the bitcoin network, it is verified for correctness by all other participants in the network. Majority vote decides if the new block is correct or not. So if the block includes a payout to the miner, despite the 21M limit already beeing reached, and the majority of bitcoin participants have updated software which accepts payouts exceeding 21M, then the block will be accepted by then bitcoin network. Therese is no cryptogtaphy or math involved in the 21M limit. It is just an arbitrary limit set in bitcoin software, and enforced only by majority vote.
Something is accellerating at a completely unsustainable rate, quickly approaching a solid wall. Yeah, it will probably be OK! Just like the accellerating debt of USA. It will probably be OK... What is an optimist like you doing on a bullion forum? ;-) Maybe "bitcoin mining" in the future will be about digging trough thousands of discarded computers searching their harddrives for forgotten bitcoin keys. If you find a forgotten 50 BTC key from some early miner, then you can retire for life. Or maybe, just maybe, the mathematically unsustainable bitcoin bubble will burst within a few years. Bitcoins are based completely on math. And pure math says that bitcoin is unsustainable.
Some suggest Bitcoin is the gold (the dollars) and Litecoin is the silver (the cents) of crypto currencies, these days at least.
