For the record: I don't trust mtgox at all. I know where you're coming from StackHat, especially in regards to the silver comment, but sometimes if no one wants to listen it is actually because it really is not the logical choice, not because they simply don't see the light. Take religion for instance @_@
In this example, both of these sites are centralised and centrally controlled, and users of these sites have no real investment in them. One of the major problems social networking sites have is that the users have a fleeting interest in them and it is easy for them to switch. In the case of MySpace, the users had close to no investment except for a bit of time and a few photos. That is why Facebook and other sites attempt to provide lockin through providing services that are hard to move away from. If all of a sudden you have 10000 photos of friends tagged in Facebook, you're going to seriously consider moving from it because of your time investment. If you translate that to financial investment, if I have money invested in Bitcoin and there is a large user base who are happy to trade bitcoin (and the infrastructure was there) why would I move off it? Incentives by the new player to trade out? Exchange my Bitcoins for something else? If I have money invested it doesn't make it a fleeting decision for me, a lot of people would need to move in a short space of time to make the dent and damage/deflate Bitcoin. This isn't saying it couldn't happen, but the more people that get involved and start trading Bitcoin the less likely you are going to be to get the critical mass. Also unlike the MySpace / Facebook example, some people would see the move off Bitcoin as the perfect time to buy back into the currency (to potentially profit), so it would be a hard one to kill unless you are offering a method to trade out. What makes Bitcoin so appealing to so many is that it is decentralised, there is no single governing body. Goldman Sachs would only be interested in creating a similar currency if they in some way could control it or profit off it.. would you switch to a competing currency that someone could control centrally? The longer Bitcoin goes on decentralised the more that faith in it will grow. The kind of people that are currently using it are doing so because of it's lack of government restriction. If anything is created by the 'mainstream' banking world there is no way it could/would avoid being government regulated, even PayPal got dragged into this.. (who wants their account frozen without explanation?) To me this argument is like saying "the US Government have created an alternative anonymous routing system to tor, everyone should get on it because the US Government employs the brightest minds from MIT, and it's 100x better'... not sure how many people will take you up on that offer. This response still doesn't counter the argument that if BTC were to be made illegal, the value would likely tank and never be spoken of again I felt this video failed to explain _why_ people/banks bother to lend an inflationary currency. If a bank lends money and when they get paid back it's going to be 'worth' less.. why bother?.. because of interest! Banks lend money to make money on interest/fees. In a deflationary currency, if they lend you currency today, and in 10 years they know it's going to be 'worth' more (when trading for good/services).. surely they would want to lend it? because not only will they make the return on the value of the currency increasing, they can also still charge interest/fees to ensure they get the value return they want to achieve. The argument for me goes a little bit differently to this, and I do see lending/borrowing as a difficult area with BTC because of it's anonymous nature (and the fact it isn't recognised as a currency). If you lend BTC you have no guarantee of seeing any of it returned, there is no credit record, no feds going to lock the borrower up for defaulting.. it is an extreme risk. Even if you have the persons full identity you have no way of getting those coins back if they default. This is also where I like to draw the line as BTC is an online currency, it's not about setting up FRB like the real world, it's about having a universal method for trading goods/services online and I think it will be good at that. I personally don't see it as a full replacement for FRB or lending borrowing. How much of your fiat is stuffed under your mattress at home? Ever heard of a bank run? they do happen, and guess what.. people line up for days because the banks have no money.. ahh FRB! This comes back to the stupid argument that you can somehow walk into a bank and cash out your fiat for gold.. news flash.. you can't. I have to warn my bank in advance if I plan to cash out more than 10k to make sure they can get it on hand. If there was a massive 'electronic pulse bomb' not only would all banking as we currently know it also be rendered useless, you wouldn't be able to walk in to a bank and 'cash out' to fiat because the banking system would be offline, you would be reduced to trading the fiat you have on hand (which is likely very little thanks to the world of eftpos). Side note: gold would probably be the last thing on your mind.. i'd be looking for ration packs. No one is pretending that Bitcoin solves the problem of trading in a world without the Internet but the reality is that all banking now in a world without the Internet is difficult (and will become increasingly more difficult). It's unfair, a mining company with all their wealth can go and mine gold from land and sell it for profit!, i'm a pensioner and can't afford to eat.. how am I meant to compete when all I have is a pick axe and this 10m2 mining plot? No one has said that Bitcoin is socialism in action. The person who invests more gets more in return, that sounds perfectly fair to me. If your definition/idea of fair is that everyone is given the same amount regardless of work effort, perhaps consider taking up residence in the PRC. News flash, BTC won't cure world hunger either! Don't disagree with this at all, it's the risk you have to be willing to take. It's a similar risk that many take investing in bullion. Note: I have used 'quotes' above to summarise my interpretation of the points in the video, these are not direct 'quotes'. It's for the aesthetics, nothing else
+1 The alternative is that it may not be a logical (or sane) choice (both silver and Bitcoins!). :lol: On the plus side I have a collection of shiny paper weights.. which is more than I can say for Bitcoins
It's a crash, but it doesn't mean it's doomed because of the crash. Silver crashed last month There was most likely a speculative bubble looking at the chart prices, some people probably cashed out and others got burnt. Not discussing the pros or cons of BitCoin, just a simple observation. Where is there a reliable trading volume or pricing on the net? Serious question here, if you are trying to use BC to exchange for services you really have to be able to know the 'value' of 1BC. Is there a "xe.com" equivalent for BitCoin? Probably wrong audience anyway. Most of us are here because we don't trust fiat currencies in the long run. Trying to ask us to trust a "10101010" system would be an even harder thing to achieve. Don't be too bothered if a lot of people diss you for your posts, it's just like trying to post about the benefits of Hungry Jacks in a dieting forum.
Wow, and thought that trusting your wealth to pieces of plastic with drawings of dead guys on them was rather virtual.....
It's a good question, which leads to a whole other Bitcoin problem. In short, www.bitcoincharts.com is probably the largest source for 'traditional style' currency trade information which mtgox usually leading the chart (which is where the boom/gloom stories come from). I think this is the site that most people flock to because it looks most like a conventional stock market. I personally prefer the idea of something like http://www.bitcoin-otc.com/ where people trade bitcoin directly and then base transactions on a web of trust (http://www.bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php)... now I prefer that for a method of trading but it's a poor method for price because you don't know what the coin is actually being traded at.. you can only trust what is in the order book (http://www.bitcoin-otc.com/vieworderbook.php). I argue that this method is still better because the site has less to gain from pumping the price as they don't take a cut of transactions, all transactions are carried out directly between parties. Does that help you for an xe.com equivalent? sorry to say.. no .. I currently rely on things like the bitcoin-otc to get an idea of what people are trading at (as well as what for.. as you can trade for more than just currency). I also follow the mining statistics (eg. current hash rate.. current average time to solve a block) as these indicate how many people are getting on board and mining.. which in one way represents demand. If the blocks/hour is regularly above 6 you can be fairly sure there has been an increase in involvement / interest in mining / trading BTC. Along with mining statistics there are also the complexity statistics which are pretty interesting. As the complexity is adjusted every 2 weeks it's interesting to see how people react. There are constant rumours that the increase in complexity will lead to people giving up on mining because of cost (electricity, hardware payback etc.) but mining capacity is one thing that does appear to be constantly on the way up and so far people still seem to see value in mining for the potential return. You may see sudden spikes in BTC prices if there is a massive complexity increase. http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AmcTCtjBoRWUdHVRMHpqWUJValI1RlZiaEtCT1RrQmc Also use the deepbit calculator to determine how many bitcoins you could potentially generate on standard domestic hardware.. this gives an idea of how the complexity increases have impacted on the difficulty to mine/create coin. If it gets too out of hand you may make the decision that putting in an offer on bitcoin-otc is easier than mining Also spend a bit of time on the forums.. a lot of sections are filled with speculative posts from users (trolls) trying to deter people from mining to benefit from the slump in processing... http://forum.bitcoin.org/? Interesting threads are those that point to mainstream media articles on Bitcoin because currently this is the most likely cause of a rapid spike in price, also the Economics threads http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=1958.0 Also there are some interesting threads that people spend a lot of time on eg. Price vs. Difficulty charts http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=7427.0 Not sure why I wrote all that in answer to your xe.com question.. definitely does make the whole thing look less appealing in retrospect :lol: wish I could have had a simple answer My problem is I enjoy reading about it as much from the technical perspective as the economic. I am just as interested to see if the technology can/will hold up over time. If nothing else, it's cheap entertainment.. it's like watching an economy in a snowglobe. :lol: Getting involved is optional
The reason I'm very interested in bitcoin, and I think any of those following FOFOA's Freegold theory should also, is that bitcoin could be the transactional currency in the Freegold system in conjunction with gold as the wealth store. I have always had a concern that FOFOA has never addressed the potential problems of conventional fiat in a Freegold system, that is, the discipline that gold as (only) a wealth store may not work to control fiat as well as he thinks. Bitcoin could provide Freegold with a better transactional currency, as it shares with gold the key feature of limited supply/non-printability. Those who follow FOFOA will get what I'm talking about.
After reading all the articles littered with inaccuracies (usually bloggers driving hits to their site), I have found one that actually has some time spent researching behind it and is worth the read http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/06/virtual-currency?fsrc=rss Goes to great effort to explain the workings of the block chain which people may find interesting.
I sold all but 4 coins at $30 USD last week. The ride was becoming too wild. Pretty much straight after I sold, everything took a big turn for the worst as well. I'm sure the price will recover and surpass $30 USD but I don't have the stomach for it!
Oh sorry mate, I thought I did? Either way, I have 4.39 left, up for PM trade if you're interested. How you going? You bought in? If not, when? If so, how long will you hold?
Could you expand on this a bit. As I understand freegold, digital currencies can be referenced in physical gold and that reference value available to everyone. Are you talking about the possibility that a central authority will need to provide that reference point infrastructure for it's currency? That bitcoin being decentralised and digital, can also reference fiat currency in a much more efficient manner than the infrastructure required for physical gold reference? Yes, I have noticed bitcoin moving towards a focal point in a similar manner to gold. The only things I can deduce that could stop this is, a stronger decentralised and limited supply focal point in digital space, or the lights go out everywhere. Both those seem unlikely so I expect some fireworks when bitcoin becomes unlawful. They may be able to slow the liquidity but the idea is out of the bottle and seems mostly unstoppable now.
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=16457.0 That's a lot of BitCoins to lose in 1 go. $500k worth, epic. Also I think that what happened last week with the BC crash was because it's so easy to pump and dump as well with BitCoin, no regulators and volume is too small (unlike Forex markets) to prevent pump and dump, actually even Forex markets get pumped and dumped all the time, such as Thailand and the Asian FC of 97.
Well, I have to say I've been reading some articles and watching some videos on bitcoins and thinking through a few of the ideas and projecting into the future and I've flipped my view on it. It may(emphasis on may) be the start of something big. I can see why a lot of people will want to use this in the future. I can see why govt's won't like it, a lot of trade can be conducted out of their view, and no way to shut it down (other than shutting down the internet). I'm going to get a few, it's worth speculating on if nothing else I think. Will be interesting to see how it fairs against competition.
Hawkye i suggest you hold off if you truly want to get at the best prices. It jsut a mtter of time till the government makes a move to shut it down. Once that happens the value of btc will drop dramatically. Enter the market at that time. This is what I am thinking of doing. Cant buy it now when the price went up so much over last few weeks.
Hi, Firstly - I have to admit that I have not studied the concept of bitcoin in depth. Although I can see merit in some of the outcomes such as doing away with banks, paypal and transaction fees etc I can see it developing more as an investment for some, and a black market money system for others and not really for online purchasing. It will appeal to those who do illegal money transactions and I cannot see it lasting long because of this - some government, probably the USA will shut it down eventually. I also do not like the idea of the original 'miners' having benefited from it financially for being able to create more of the bitcoins, it does make it seem a bit like a pyramid scheme, although a very sophisticated one!
For those who missed it, the largest Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox was compromised early this morning and ~60,000 accounts including password hashes were leaked out into the public domain. mtgoxUSD plummeted as a result and the whole exchange/value of BTC appears to be in limbo with everyone reluctant to move. This relates to my point above about people depending on a central service for a decentralised currency (and why bitcoin-otc is a better idea). Some interesting things that did come out of it though... Many people thought there were far more users trading on Mt.Gox so for there to only be ~60k it was surprising. People are also saying their account ID is in the ~30k range from only a month ago so this would suggest that Mt.Gox doubled its user base in around a month. A lot of trading has essentially stopped now, pointing out how much people treat Mt.Gox as a 'single truth' for exchange of BTC. The hashing rate (rate at which people process blocks/mine) hasn't appeared to have slowed too dramatically. Will be interesting to see if this drops over the next few days with people starting to pull their rigs down due to lack of potential return. Mt.Gox seem to be a bit vague about what was compromised with their statement saying: Then shortly after the list of 60k+ accounts turned up. I realise this isn't a Bitcoin news site but thought people may be interested in the developments, at the end of the rush BTC was down from ~$17USD to a few cents... will be interesting to see if the return of Mt.Gox stimulates a return in 'value' or if everyone feels too bitten to return now. Also want to make the distinction that this wasn't a hack / compromise of BTC or anything to do with the BTC protocol, but a site that trades BTC... it is interesting how massive the impact is though -edit- Should also point out that Mt.Gox plan to rollback prior to when the compromised accounts were accessed / large quantities were sold/offloaded... not sure if this really fits with the free market ideal A great point I have read elsewhere is that many people panic sold on other exchanges because of Mt.Gox price plummeting...
Interesting fact of the day: Did you know the MTG in MTGOX stands for Magic The Gathering? I kid you not Full name: Magic the Gathering Online Exchange Owner: Unknown, some Japanese guy on IRC
