A good recent theory is that the coins are simply unretrievable - kinda like if you lose the password to your cold wallet.
Exactly - I'd prefer an exchange that promises nothing than one that pretends to provide a safe and secure environment with lots of rules which in the end is all BS. Sites can look real professional but in reality they might be run by some high school kid out of his bedroom or the Russian mafia.
I disagree with you there, this is going to be ongoing and it will probably get worse for dealers and buyers because there will be alot more busts coming. It will also get worse for the feds aswell as avenues that are easily accessible become available that improve anonymity; mixing, zerocoin etc....
Mt Gox. failed, not Bitcoin So when the Comex eventually collapses due to insufficient Gold to meet withdrawals and the price of paper Gold get smashed down will people blame Gold or blame the Exchange? Will the public point the finger at the Gold investors and say haha I told you so Gold was a bad investment? The fact that Bitcoin was trading at 75% discount on Mt Gox and the fact that Bitcoin prices have risen since Mt Gox stopped trading should paint the real picture. Feel free to continue bashing Bitcoin if you don't understand it, after all people that don't understand Gold bash the Gold bugs.
Meh, Bitcoin is first and foremost a medium of exchange, it's excellent at it and will continue to have a future doing that. Never confuse it with a store of wealth, it was not designed for this nor will it ever be good at it. maybe it's descendants will fulfill this role but that is not what bitcoin is designed to do. All the people speculating who lost out... well... that's what happens when you gamble... cest la vie.
It's a medium of exchange, similar to how Fiat is not a good store of wealth. Like the early days of the Internet Bitcoin still has a long way to go and has many uses, A use of Bitcoin that is not used yet is it's ability to be used for democratic funding, image your mobile phone could use under utilised resources to add nodes, mine POW, mint POS that would add network value and is then assigned shares that can be distributed to your own personalized choice of Public works projects or Charities. With everyone doing this capital would be allocated democratically rather than via the Government, essentially removing the need for 90% of the Government. Also Escrow features are still dormant as well as delayed payment, imagine you want to give a relative overseas a gift on their birthday, you could sent it out to the Blockchain but have it arrive on your own specified date. You could even send coins beyond the grave, a Last Will that could not be challenged. You could set up regular payments and pay in advance, forming complex contractual arrangements without the need for Lawyers. By colouring the coins you could use satoshi as investment vehicles, floating Bonds, Stock, ETFs, Property etc. utalising the already built network for anything you could imagine. The access to high powered encryption is now accessible by everyone, essentially giving anyone the access to Billions of dollars worth of hardware to encrypt and De-crypt data of all sorts. Messages, files, webpages, images and as the new coins evolve we will have a completely new Internet built onto of the current one, like an Internet within an Intranet. People need to stop comparing Bitcoin with Gold, it's more of a hybrid of (Fiat / Internet) with limitless potential
generally a currency does 3 things, it acts as a store of wealth, e.g. there are all sorts of issues with physically holding gold which you should know from being a part of this forum, imagine what would happen if you tried to store your wealth in copper... or crude oil .... or grain. AUD has a lot of advantages over these other things. it acts as a unit of account, e.g. I will pay you $10 for 10 widgets from your factory in 6 months time. it acts as a medium of exchange e.g. I will pay you 10BTC for 10 widgets now. bitcoin is great for that last one, no visa, no mastercard, optional fees, no currency conversion, 10 minutes wait time, etc... its fine that payment providers charge a currency conversion fee but their conversion rates are so obviously predatory it's hard to take them seriously..
fiat, bitcoin and even honey are all stores of wealth, i fail to see why they are not. are they considered good stores? is the only determining factor if their value rises?
it was not designed as a store of wealth, it is very volatile and easy to steal or lose. it can be used as a store of wealth but I would say you are speculating. sometimes this is a good gamble, esp if you live somewhere like Zimbabwe, maybe not so much in Australia though.
again, what was it designed for? glad you concede it is a store of wealth, lucky investing in precious metals, shares or futures is not considered speculating
it was designed to be used as a medium of exchange and cut out the payment processors / enable free trade.
i am not sure that was satoshi nakamoto's idea when he wrote the original paper, but it is one possible application. you are aware that bitcoin transactions attract fees?
I am not sure that it wasn't satoshi nakamoto's idea when he wrote the original paper, but it is an excellent application. You can choose not to pay fees, that is the default built into the client not into the network.
Can anyone explain the 'poney' virus that was supposedly the conduit used to rob MtGox? (saw it on Reuters somewhere I think)
from this article http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/what-transaction-malleability-did-it-kill-mtgox-1438411 What is transaction malleability? When bitcoins are sent from one user to another, the transaction is digitally signed by the account sending the coins; this transaction includes key information such as the amount of bitcoins being sent, who they are coming from and who they are going to. Each transaction is given a unique name, an ID, which is generated based on the information contained within the transaction. This transaction ID can then be seen on the public bitcoin ledger, a record of every bitcoin transaction ever made and which can be viewed by anyone through Blockchain.info. But some of the data used to create this ID comes from unsigned and insecure parts of the transaction, and as such it is possible for the receiver to alter parts of the transaction ID without the sender's permission or knowledge. In the case of MtGox, the exchange was configured to expect transactions to show up under a specific transaction ID. When those transactions failed to appear - because the ID had been altered by the receiver withdrawing funds from MtGox - the thief could then file a complaint, which would instruct the exchange to automatically retry the withdrawal, handing over the requested bitcoins for a second time, but with neither transaction appearing on the public ledger.
