Bitcoins at $75

[guerilla]

FALSE. Even accepting this limited definition of money, your argument then is that there is no store of value as a distributed, guaranteed consistent, permanent datastore?

Turn off the power.

Exchange it without a computer.

Exchange it without the clearing mechanism.

That's incredibly valuable, much moreso than a physical good, and it has nothing to do with Bitcoin's usability as medium of exchange or function as a payment system and a currency.

First, value is subjective.

Second, your body lives in the physical world. Physical goods, including the gold on your motherboard that allows you to even dream of Bitcoin, are first order goods.

Third, if no one will exchange your silver as money, it still can be used to make jewelry, in medical goods etc. What can you do with a Bitcoin hash if no one will exchange with you?

Its obvious that you have limited knowledge of Bitcoin.

I never claimed to be an expert on Bitcoin, but I think I have a fair bit of knowledge about it. Probably more than many people trading in it.

But on the topic of money, I feel that's a real area of competency for me. And reading most of the stuff posted, not for many other people.

It would also be nice if whenever you are cornered you could stop resorting to personal attacks and rhetoric like "lay person" and "ignoramus".

Those aren't personal attacks. An ignoramus is someone who is ignorant. A lay person is someone who doesn't have much (if any) domain specific knowledge about the topic.

You can google these words or terms for their meaning.

 

[Moxie]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9kjUbzLGm0]Damien Sandow - Ignoramus - YouTube[/ame]



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwgFCcYPk3A]Damien Sandow meets ignoramuses at Comic-Con - "Outside the Ring" - Episode 15 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[guerilla]

does anyone actually use bitcoins to buy anything other than illegal shit?

For all of the conversation about BTC, remarkably very little of it revolves around actually using BTC. Trading seems to be its highest use right now.

Like Pokemons.

sure, namecheap and some other random companies accept it, but who is honestly spending their bitcoins on things they could just buy with their debit card?

The other side of this, is that if you collect BTC as a business, you have to report your BTC transactions for tax purposes and reveal proof of transaction if audited.

I can see the tax angle being the one used to keep businesses from doing a lot of business with Bitcoin. It's fine for a bunch of gay webmaster tech fetishists and anarcho-libertarians to talk a good game about using crypto-currency, but when your corporation is running afoul of the government (right or wrong) you will have to get in line. There are no businesses in the US that will be able to go rogue against the wishes of the USG and stay in business.

 

[(O_o)]

does anyone actually use bitcoins to buy anything other than illegal shit?

sure, namecheap and some other random companies accept it, but who is honestly spending their bitcoins on things they could just buy with their debit card?

seems way too risky for any real legit use because it fluctuates so much, business owners can't risk suddenly losing 15% of a sale if coins go down.

There are a few places that use BTC, not 'a lot' but its growing as it nears the 1bil $ cap.

Check out Bitcoin for the latest 0day news and info.

Guy in Canada selling his house for BTC, OKCupid accepting BTC, reddit BTC, donate BTC to help out the homeless, bitmit (eBay basically + BTC), etc. Any business or website can accept BTC, they just have to get setup correctly just like any other payment medium.

As far a 'loss', a business could exchange the BTC immediately into USD or any other currency to avoid it if they didnt want to hold.

 

[dreamache]

There are no businesses in the US that will be able to go rogue against the wishes of the USG and stay in business.

I don't entirely agree with that. Sure, they can go rogue and do things "illegally", but whether or not they'll be detected is another story. There's all sorts of things you can do to play the system and remain safe. It just takes the balls to mess with that sort of thing, and believe me, many do.

 

[slayerment]

If I may pipe in here, I must say this is a great discussion.

I want to see Bitcoin do something just as much as the next person, but I do have the same concerns that have been presented by G and BlokBlok. I highly suspect that the sudden rise in the Bitcoin price is almost pure speculation and not based on any real demand. I noticed this fast price increase shortly after hearing Max Keiser on the Alex Jones show, which has a big audience that would be into this type of a thing. But it's not just that show, it has been getting a lot of talk, hype and marketing lately. People are buying because they are being marketed to, not because they are using it. I have Bitcoins but I'm not using them either.

It will be really interesting to see how this plays out. I suspect there will be a big sell off after the psychological price of 100 is reached. If the mentality behind people buying Bitcoin right now is the same as the mentality of the people posting in this thread then the rise in price seems to be mostly assholes like me speculating and hoping to make an easy buck or two and possibly use at a later date, which probably won't happen because governments will step in.

That said, I do love what Bitcoin is doing and I love seeing some type of threat that will at least get people thinking and force the governments to react to it. I hope it can get enough steam to make a difference. I would much rather use a gold backed digital currency if I had my way, but the fact that people have been shut down for doing that gives me a bit of pleasure to see Bitcoin doing something similar. We will see how it goes.

 

[conv3rsion]

Turn off the power.

Exchange it without a computer.

Exchange it without the clearing mechanism.

No problem. I can write down a private key, use a paper wallet, or hand you one of these

https://www.casascius.com/

Its also easier to verify these transactions than to due an acid test. Yes that process might require electricity, but then again maybe its ok to establish trust by relying on science that is only over 100 years old instead of science that is several hundred years old.

I'm done with this discussion. You have obviously made no serious attempt to understand Bitcoin and I'm not going to refute things that should be obvious to you if you had.

 

[(O_o)]

How the FBI views Bitcoins ~> http://cryptome.org/2012/05/fbi-bitcoin.pdf (pretty interesting).

lulz.

FinCen dox ~> FinCen Regulation of BitCoin and Virtual Currency

edit: also just hit an all time high atm, $91.582.

 

[guerilla]

No problem. I can write down a private key

You could even write it down 10x in an hour and give it to 10 people. Paper money son.

or hand you one of these

https://www.casascius.com/

Now we have come full circle. The answer to Bitcoin is physical coins.

Its also easier to verify these transactions than to due an acid test. Yes that process might require electricity, but then again maybe its ok to establish trust by relying on science that is only over 100 years old instead of science that is several hundred years old.

It's not about the age of the science. It's about the ability to keep your money without a bunch of technological and social inter-dependencies.

Each level of dependency introduces fragility and reduces durability. There is an opportunity cost, and transaction costs at each level of dependency. A good example was the recent bung up with the clearing mechanism running two different versions.

I'm done with this discussion. You have obviously made no serious attempt to understand Bitcoin and I'm not going to refute things that should be obvious to you if you had.

I think I've probably spent 5 or 6 hours in the last 3 months discussing Bitcoin, and cryptography, the clearing mechanism etc with some very intelligent folks.

I've been following BTC since day 1. These aren't ad hoc, or unresearched opinions I am posting. They also aren't isolated criticisms, many people much smarter than me have similar concerns.

This presumption that I don't understand Bitcoin, without demonstrating where I am specifically ignorant, is rhetoric that is unhelpful. I won't assume it is in bad faith, but then if you had me on some misunderstanding about Bitcoin, why not just post it?

And even if I was totally ignorant about Bitcoin, do I really need to know Calculus to understand that 1 + 1 is not equal to 3? If so, isn't that a very high barrier to expect people to achieve to form an opinion on BTC?

 

[guerilla]

I don't entirely agree with that. Sure, they can go rogue and do things "illegally", but whether or not they'll be detected is another story. There's all sorts of things you can do to play the system and remain safe. It just takes the balls to mess with that sort of thing, and believe me, many do.

Proper businesses comply with government regulation. Most major players in any significant industry are a proper business.

 

[guerilla]

That said, I do love what Bitcoin is doing and I love seeing some type of threat that will at least get people thinking and force the governments to react to it.

That's the other side of it. People assume I hate Bitcoin, but I don't. I see it as an experiment, and a lot can be learned from it. Maybe it will help create better digital currencies in the future.

But unbacked money is unbacked money, and if you asked me to put my wealth into one unbacked currency or the other, I will always put it into the one which can be used to pay taxes, because there is always demand for that currency in a statist economy.

 

[charlesmartel]

In case any of you bitcoin fanboys haven't read up on e-gold history, check this out:

e-gold - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Man may not be able to put a lot of people in prison due to the anonymity but they will use the similar means to shut it down or at least scare away most people. And if any foreigners are identified as conducting transactions with Americans in ways the Man deems inappropriate, they will be apprehended (kidnapped) when traveling to the US or just flying through on stopovers.

http://www.cato.org/blog/uk-gambling-ceo-arrested-us-airport

 

[(O_o)]

In other news, the dollar has dropped to 0.0108 bitcoins. The dollar is really not performing well now folks. ^__^

Also if you IRC
irc.freenode.org
#bitcoin (1000+ users in chan)
#bitcoin-mining

Google trends

+ http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/ex...tive-to-paypal-for-international-contractors/

 

[guerilla]

What happens when 18 million out of the 21 million available Bitcoins have been mined, and the difficulty level in mining becomes so great that interest from miners wanes? People are going to cash out, then go on a nice vacation to Mexico thanks to their Bitcoin earnings.

All the while, the price of Bitcoins will plummet, and it'll revert back to its original status of a black market currency.

If not 18, then 21 million. Once they have all been mined, there is going to need to be crazy demand to maintain very high market caps.

I suspect in the meantime, other crypto currencies will come along and the speculative fever will move to the next hot mover. Sort of like what happens with penny stocks.

If anyone is familiar with how penny stocks work, you can see a lot of elements in this current rise in BTC. There is a lot of money to be made in penny stocks, as long as you are on the right side of the market timing. You can also lose a fair bit being on the wrong side.

 

[(O_o)]

If anyone is familiar with how penny stocks work, you can see a lot of elements in this current rise in BTC. There is a lot of money to be made in penny stocks, as long as you are on the right side of the market timing. You can also lose a fair bit being on the wrong side.

This is a good point.

I used to run a few penny stock websites and the basis of 99% of penny stocks is pump and dump/mail your lists/hype. check out Timothy Sykes for a great example.

The price of BTC has went from $32 to $92 in the past 30 days. thats fucking crazy. there is now 1bil+ $ in bitcoins. decent amount of money, worth WAY more than some countries/nation states (LOL Uganda). The $100+ point is where it is going to become a very interesting turning point. Do you panic and sell or keep?

While I am in BTC on speculation and basic knowledge, there is def shit that is backing it temporarily & even long term. PUMP long dump? who knows. I'm riding this bull and dont really care if I get thrown off and become a paraplegic.

 

[guerilla]

This is a good point.

I used to run a few penny stock websites and the basis of 99% of penny stocks is pump and dump/mail your lists/hype. check out Timothy Sykes for a great example.

I am actually a pretty big Tim Sykes fan.

While I am in BTC on speculation and basic knowledge, there is def shit that is backing it temporarily & even long term. PUMP long dump? who knows. I'm riding this bull and dont really care if I get thrown off and become a paraplegic.

You're great and I love you.

 

[mattseh]

I don't understand how people think that all/most bitcoins being mined (mining will finish in 2140, only cardine will live to see that) will lead to a price crash against the dollar. Someone please explain.

Also Kiopa, mining difficulty is governed by the amount of mining capacity that is online. Less miners = more money per miner.

 

[sennin436]

That said, I do love what Bitcoin is doing and I love seeing some type of threat that will at least get people thinking and force the governments to react to it. I hope it can get enough steam to make a difference. I would much rather use a gold backed digital currency if I had my way, but the fact that people have been shut down for doing that gives me a bit of pleasure to see Bitcoin doing something similar. We will see how it goes.

My sentiments exactly. Looking at the chain of events, the news of how bitcoin is making some impact outside of the US., etc, it's definitely interesting to see what the long term impact and outcome will be. My guess is that any major changes that bitcoin forces to bring to govts, to their tax structures or economic systems, etc will occur with much more politically & economically unstable nations first and will hit the US last. It'll impact the third world (ex: system-d) and some countries in europe and asia first. So my scifi-future dream of something like the fairtax system to transform and minimize the powers of our current Income Removal Service probably won't be realized for awhile :1orglaugh:

 

[igl00]

machien for real miners:
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/1500gh-bitcoin-miner.html

 

[guerilla]

I don't understand how people think that all/most bitcoins being mined (mining will finish in 2140, only cardine will live to see that) will lead to a price crash against the dollar. Someone please explain.

When supply constrains, parabolic price moves are hard to maintain.

If everyone is holding for price increases (and there is limited supply otherwise) then how will BTC be able to trade at volume?

Also, does anyone know a website where I can see the total amount of BTC in existence, and the daily trading volumes?