Bitcoin Forum

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/how-to-start-your-own-private-currency/73327/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/how-to-start-your-own-private-currency/73327/)

"Architects of private currencies face a chicken-egg challenge. To make a new currency popular among users, you have to sign up retailers. To make it popular among retailers, you have to sign up users."

"The most interesting currency facing this existential crisis is BitCoin, a computer-generated currency that is famously traded among a couple hundred computer geeks and merchants. 'The only thing valuable about BitCoin is that there are other nerdy internet denizens that will accept it for payment for things,' Blanchard said."

"BitCoin is backed by neither metals nor man-hours, yet each coin is worth nearly a dollar due to demand for the scarce BitCoins that have been released among the network of users. BitCoin is currently legal and active. But some worry it could face a fate like E-Gold, the bullion-backed online currency that quickly became a favorite of global crooks and money launderers. Its founder was sentenced to house arrest."

This was four years ago; I'm wondering what 'long enough' is for any currency to be legitimized for the masses.

Yeah back in the day many people were capitalizing the "C" in BitCoin. That's nostalgia.

Even the stickied thread on the top of this page was titled: New to BitCoin? Start here!

Yeah now we're in 2016 and still facing the same chicken-egg challenge.
But bitcoin is not only a currency, it's also a store of value and an investment. So the so-called chicken-egg challenge isn't really one: users must come first, as investors, and then more and more retailers can join in as bitcoin becomes a more and more attractive mean of payment.
In other words we know which comes first, between the bitcoin-egg and the bitcoin-chicken  :)

Now the real challenges are different: (1) the blocksize issue (2) regulation that might come, supported by masses for whom it's innocent geeks who use bitcoin anymore but terrorists.

Yeah, this is very interesting.  2011 seems like so long ago in so many ways, and it's hard to believe it was only 5 years ago.  Crazy.  Would have been nice had I bought some way back then instead of chasing the precious metals like everyone was doing then.  Gold & silver were going nuts, but I do remember at least reading about bitcoin in 2011.  It took at least until 2014 before I realized that it wasn't a scam and wasn't going away.  Good times.

BitCoin has come a long way since then, and I would like to hear what the author of that article would say, if we look at the growth it has seen, since then. BitCoin has changed the financial industry in such a major way, that it cannot be compared with E-Gold or any other cheap attempt at creating a digital currency.

The Geeks and Nerds are now the millionaires of Bitcoin. < Spot the correct spelling now > ^smile^

Maybe we can replace the Bitcoin with ETH or any other strong alt coin out there and this can still be applied now.

Those were great times to be here, but I was a Bit too late having arrived when BitCoin was surging past $2.5/btc. I sure wish I still had all the ones sold at $7 ...

How fast 4 years can go and how fast the price can move in that time.

I think there has been a lot of growth from the claimed hundreds of internet geeks that were mentioned in the article. We are now millions already, which is kind of linear compared to the price growth!

I am sure after the blocksize debate and the reward halving, we will be back on track.

In few years we could be asking yourself same question if bitcoin jump to 4k?
But also we must be prepared for worst case scenario back to 1$?

I`ll look back in 20 years after BTC gets to 1,000,000$ and see how stupid people were who though that bitcoin is dead now.

I think bitcoin will not face that chicken egg chalange like e-gold as bitcoin founder is anonymous and also they can't shutdown all the nodes worlwide. LOL to government

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/average-life-expectancy-for-fiat.html (http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/average-life-expectancy-for-fiat.html)

"According to a study of 775 fiat currencies by DollarDaze.org, there is no historical precedence for a fiat currency that has succeeded in holding its value. Twenty percent failed through hyperinflation, 21% were destroyed by war, 12% destroyed by independence, 24% were monetarily reformed, and 23% are still in circulation approaching one of the other outcomes."

"The average life expectancy for a fiat currency is 27 years, with the shortest life span being one month. Founded in 1694, the British pound Sterling is the oldest fiat currency in existence. At a ripe old age of 317 years it must be considered a highly successful fiat currency. However, success is relative. The British pound was defined as 12 ounces of silver, so it's worth less than 1/200 or 0.5% of its original value. In other words, the most successful long standing currency in existence has lost 99.5% of its value."

"Given the undeniable track record of currencies, it is clear that on a long enough timeline the survival rate of all fiat currencies drops to zero."

This is so interesting; almost feels like a crystal ball.   :D

Ah, the days when one could even mine whole Bitcoins in minutes with a potato. First time I heard about mining Bitcoin (2011) I thought it had something to do with Minecraft. Btw, I'm surprised to see that already in 2011 prices rose above $20. It took roughly 20 months for BTC to reach this value again ..

To me there's only one issue and that's that Bitcoin hasn't been able to generate actual demand from the mainstream. The technical aspects can all be sorted out eventually really if the developers come to an agreement or adopt new ideas from new projects. But common people won't use Bitcoin in a million of years if it doesn't present in a different and more accessible way.

It has to solve a problem a lot of people has, to go mainstream. The people in the western world do not have any reason to switch. < It is not a faster payment method and the process to acquire it is cumbersome and complicated > The only reason they might accept it on a merchant level, would be because of the < No Charge back > feature.

The area where it solves a problem is with remittance in the 3rd world countries. The potential for growth in that sector is phenomenal and untapped at the moment, but then you have to stay away from fiat conversion.

We still had remarkable growth with all the challenges we were faced with. <Mt Gox | Silkroad | Crypsy | Blocksize differences etc. > ^smile^

Looooooooooool

That seems rather incredible now for sure xD

I was not even aware of the existence of bitcoin at that time...
What I find crazy is... How did it work back then? I mean now it's easy cause high internet debit everywhere and dozens of wallets/sites/exchanges. But at that time?

Even if I was aware of btc existence I don't think I would have been able to adopt it ^^

Yeah, should have kept every bit of 'dust' we mined. What we consider dust in those days adds up to some serious $ these days.

Still remember selling a small chunk of mined coins at the $30 peak tho.  ;D

The first poster's question is a very interesting one. What would it take to silence the little voice in the back of your head preaching doom? I'm not sure myself but it still feels fragile to me. It'll be a while before I'm fully confident.

Might as well still be worth that, since there's not a single person in the US who wants to buy any of my (currently) http://btc-priceimg.herokuapp.com/img/7826 worth of stuff.

I guess that depends on what they eventually decide it is. Credit card replacement? I can't ever see that happening. Digital gold? Now we're talking.

Perhaps in your dreams. It's far from realistic right now. I am already happy if we manage to come above $600 again. That alone can be considered a great achievement after all the nonsense drama we have been going through.

no one would believe at that time bitcoin is going to reach 100 $ one day even professional traders . i was confused so i missed a chance to buy more than 4000 bitcoin in 2011.deeply regret that till now.

For sure if I could I'd go back in the past and tell myself: " hey buddy, you know what a bitcoin is? No? Well go look it up and mine few coins you would? Like a few thousands of coins would be a nice start. You'll thanks me later" ;D

Here, here.  $1 BTC would be fine as long as trade volume multiplied by 10x to back it up.  The price point is sensationalist static; consumer transaction (on/off chain) volume is the key success/adoption metric - speculative investment notwithstanding the price point (degree of effort people are willing to put out to get a unit) will always adjust to reflect the currency's real-world use.

No, we can't even stay above $400 for a stretch. What on earth makes think that a "superbubble" is brewing?

Even if right now bitcoin would worth a dollar it would still be cool in my opinion. Equal value to the dollar, which is still equal grounds. But it's so much more than that. People should realize how powerful bitcoin is. At least at the moment. And I don't think it will lose value.

Bitcoin is not worth dollar at a moment but would surely overtake in the future, let bitcoin get on mainstream and we all would see the difference, the only thing bitcoin needs is the mass adoption, once it is done bitcoin would be unstoppable.

Well relative value to dollar isn't really important.
Bitcoin has a self value, it doesn't need to be constantly compared to dollar to be used!

How I wish I knew about bitcoin 4 years back when I switch to online business.I vaguely remember having heard about bitcoin somewhere on internet but didn't realize what I was going to miss by not getting myself involved in it but as they say it better late than never I am happy I finally adopted this beautiful thingy called bitcoin :D Hope 4 years down the lane I wouldn't be regretting my decision again

Yeah - I remember a friend of mine that donated 700 bitcoins when it didn't have so much value. Now he's just kicking his head when he thinks about it.

that hurt XD i think he want be dead now he was having a chance to be rish and he wasted so sad

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-post-office-banking-20160102-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-post-office-banking-20160102-story.html)

"We can have our Postal Service provide modest banking to low-income people where they can cash their checks and they can do banking,' Sanders said. "I think it will help the post office and it will help millions of low-income people.'"

:D Or...you could just switch to a decentralized currency and start your own bank.  #duh