Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin nearly reached parity with the silver oz during its bubble in 2011 (peaking at $32 when silver was at $34).

Now, in Feb 2013, it is likely to achieve that milestone. If the fundamentals remain strong it will stay there.

Any of the millions of precious metal enthusiasts who have put their savings into silver should be considering that a percentage of it would be better invested elsewhere!

Yes.  Parity.  Here we come!!!

Incredible to say the least. Silver as money is as old as civilization.

This is exactly what has me so amazed about bitcoin. It has bootstrapped itself from zero value 4.1 years ago to a serious rival for precious metals on its own merits. Sure it has been volatile, but overall, this achievement for a new paradigm and new technology is astounding.

bye bye silver, welcome BTC in the precius "metal"

Yeah, have you seen it?

https://i.imgur.com/6No8O4Oh.png

hahaha, and number 111 is very binary too!

Love that Bitcoinium!

unless we bubble up, this is unlikely. all indicators now point to a reversal. it may not happen, but it is probable.

i'm still a long-term bull, though. i'd be surprised if the all-time high wasn't broken in 2013.

There is no chance in hell silver as money can be replaced with bitcoin. You see, gold and silver are money and have always been because of their physical properties which make them perfectly suited for being money. Gold and silver are durable, divisible, convenient, fungible and has intrinsic value. Bitcoin does not: it is just internet cash, useful but no more.

Please read this to see why bitcoin is "virtual" gold
http://dev.economicsofbitcoin.com/mastersthesis/mastersthesis-surda-2012-11-19b.pdf

Value is completely inside you head. Value expressed in a market price is group psycology. It's so with Bitcoin, as it is with gold and silver.

There is no such thing as intristic value for anything other than things you can eat, a minimum price that any person would pay, otherwise he would cease to be a person, i.e. die of starvation.

Apple stocks detour or downfall  is hurting gold prices. It may not be noticeable because of other factors, but gold value is partly because of it's corrosive resistant properties in electronics which has nothing to do with golds percieved properties as money.

One can easilly imagine a post apocalyptic world where only gold is used as payment. Does that mean that gold will be more expenxsive? No a slaughtered pig might cost 5 ounces, so you would be better off investing in pig farming now than gold.

You are completely wrong. Gold is and has been money because it has characteristics that no other matter on Earth has…

It cannot be:
    - Printed (ask a miner how long it takes to find me and dig it up).
    - Counterfeited (you can try, but a scale will catch it every time).
    - Inflated (It can't be reproduced)
This is why we should not use paper as money.

It cannot be destroyed by;
    - Fire (it takes heat at least 1945.4° F. to melt)
    - Water (It does not rust or tarnish)
    - Time (coins remain recognizable after a thousand years)
    - Computer wreckage of any kind (like bitcoin)
    - It does not rot or decompose over time.
Paper can dissapear on fire, water and time. So does a computer.

It does not need:
    - Feeding (like cattle)
    - Fertilizer (like corn)
    - Maintenance (like printing presses or bitcoin)
    - Electricity / internet (like bitcoin)
    - It does not depend on other people, like bitcoin which depends on other miners for verification

It has no:
    - Time limit (most metal is still in existence)
    - Counterparty risk (remember MF Global?)
    - Shelf life (It never expires)

As a metal, It is uniquely:
    - Malleable (spread without cracking)
    - Ductile (stretch without breaking)
    - Beautiful (ask an Indian bride)

As money, It is:
    - Liquid (easily convertible to cash). This is why land or oil are not used as money.
    - Portable (you can conveniently hold $50,000 in one hand). This is why land is not used as money.
    - Divisible (you can use it in tiny fractions). This is why diamonds are not used as money.
    - Consistent (the same in any quantity, at any place). This is why diamonds / oil / corn / food are not used as money.
    - Private (no one has to know you own it). This is why land cannot be used as money as well.

You can't possibly expect to store safely the value of your labor in bitcoins today and still have it 200 years from now. With gold, you can. You see, gold and silver are the best material to make money with. Trying to make money with something that is not gold/silver is like trying to make an airplane with iron, or a computer with oxygen. It is simply the best material for that purpose: storing value.

So I repeat my claim. My grandsons will inherit the results of my efforts as gold. Yours will not inherit bitcoins.

I agree with your last point, Bitcoin have not passed the test of time and I will not enclose a paper wallet in my testament.

The other properties you claim only gold or PM have, Bitcoin also have in virtual way, so yes if you believe the internet will fall at some point in the future you are completely right.

That's not the point of precious metals and not how to speculate! People hold silver because it is secure. People gain in experimental things like Bitcoin by buying when they're cheap.

Why in the world would someone who was preferring silver to Bitcoin when their value was 1:6 suddenly want to buy Bitcoins at 1:1? That would mean he lost out on the profit in the price rise and THEN sold out his secure asset! ???

I don't get the point at all. On some fundamental analysis maybe, but with the price hike in the last year the analysis now has to have a sixfold better result to persuade the same person.

$1.50 away now

Silver $30
Bitcoin $28.50

Ok, now I will tell you all the cons the precious metals have, unlike Bitcoins:

- They can be easily detected magnetically. So thieves or border agents can seize it.
- Thay can't be used to pay instantly worldwide.
- Securing and transporting them is expensive.
- You cant copy and store them in multiple places.
- It's impossible to hide them in an absolutely secure form.
- In a deflationary economy, the precise measure of submultiples needed, imply an exponential increased cost.
- In a big transaction, you need to expend a lot of time analizing every monetary unit involved, searching for counterfeited coins.
- You can't prove ownership without exposing them and yourself.

Absolutely! Bitcoin is a very very competitive currency. Thumbs up. But it is not money ;)

Silver parity is going to represent  a very special moment in time.

This has been covered SOOO many times.  Bitcoin was in fact designed as the perfect money
[/quote]
same with bitcoin.
bitcoin cannot be counterfeited, but gold counterfeiters can fool many with tungsten
Actually a big strike could inflate gold, or advancing technologies that allow mining where previously it was impossible.
But bitcoin really will not inflate above 21m coins
Your bitcoins are not ON your computer.  The key to access them is.  So destroying your computer will not have an effect on bitcoin if you have make proper backups.  But I think you are right, bitcoins are a little weaker in this regard in theory.  good luck trying to recover your gold out of the molten slag you safe deposit box became after a fire at the bank though!

Technically no maintenance or electricity or the internet is needed to hold the coins.  It is only needed to SPEND your coins.
But I think most agree that gold (or actually silver, because gold is worth too much) is the better post-apocalyptic currency.

same with bitcoin
Liquid: bitcoin is much easier to spend then gold
portable: bitcoin is more portable and it much harder to steal when properly secured
divisible: Actually gold hits practical limits on divisibility -- a .25 USD coin would be incredibly small and easy to lose
consistent: yes
private: yes, to both but only if proper measures are taken.  if i buy an oz of gold with my credit card, its pretty easy to figure out that I own it.
Bitcoin was designed to be a perfect currency for the global internet economy.

I don't agree on these last three points.

• The block chain doesn't scale well -- it has O(n^2) in users when broadcasting transactions. In the end, extra infrastructure is needed. Operating cost always scales at least with the number of users and metals don't scale worse than that.
• Analyzing for counterfeit coins works in log time to any desired precision. Just do random sampling, statistics does the rest. Thus, it's not the big transactions that are problematic.
• You can't really prove ownership of a Bitcoin address either. I could pay some Silk Road dude to sign "I am a pink monkey" with some address of his; that doesn't mean Mr. pink monkey can spend any of his coins. Until the address participates in some sort of binding contract, it doesn't mean much.

I think Bitcoin's ability for block chain escrow/multisig/script contracts is a real plus. Quick payment on small scales isn't really its strength though. As soon as you get funds from and to some sort of payment processor, it can do these things much faster and much more efficiently. Bitcoin might be an interesting way to move funds to and from such providers though -- this helps stir competition and might prevent the payment processors from holding and possibly stealing savings.

I'd like to hold some silver in addition to BTC reserves. But I'm in Europe, so I'd have to pay tax on the purchase if it's silver -- not if it's gold. Whaaaat.

...and then it's 29.5!
Too bad I had sold out at 27-something.

So...gold next?  ;D

Yes, I think that ultimately what will constrain the price is this issue.  Ppl will have to include high txn fees to get their block included.  This will finally open a niche for an alt-coin that specializes in small payments.  But an alt-coin that actually solves these issues (and throws in new features like additional securities -- aka colored coins) rather then just forking the bitcoin source base and tweaking some parameters is what is going to succeed.  Probably it will not replace bitcoin -- btc will be used like gold for large txns.

Holliday, I was just looking at the same charts
Bitcoin is effectively at silver parity. Incredible!

Is there someone with a reddit account who can get this link promoted?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144383.msg1540335#msg1540335

wow.
 ;D

Having a party in my cubicle.

In October, a friend of mine got me a silver coin for my birthday. In December I gave him a bitcoin for his birthday (a physical one) and I said it would be worth more than the silver coin soon.

I texted the news this morning.

^ Epic.

Whilst "neat", does anyone actually think this really means anything?

Kind of. I mean, it will certainly result in more exposure as people like to talk about "neat" things, and sometimes people even write articles about this sort of thing, which historically has bolstered the price of bitcoin.

dude a currency that was made up 4 years ago is priced the same as one that has stood the test of time

this should seem significant especially if the price hold, if not go higher

anyone holding silver will probably be thinking why the fuck they have this shitty gray shit when they should  have awesome digital bitcoins!!!!!

Good time to diversify a little bit and buy some metal.

No, it is not. That is my point. An ounce of silver is a completely arbitrary comparison point and has zero meaning other than symbolic. It's not like you can have an ounce of bitcoin.

With that said, I have been considering dropping some fiat into some junk silver. Unfortunately, I just put a bunch into steel & rubber and the government is about to come calling for its pound of flesh because I have a place to live.

An ounce is a typical portion to buy metals.
A bitcoin is a typical portion to buy bitcoin.

Everyone is right!

Right, 21 million bitcoins vs. roughly 42 billion ounces of silver.  When we get to 2000X the value of an ounce of silver, wake me up.

Do you really think that the silver market started off at that price?

please when you actually think clearly wake everyone else up..

Oh wait were all already awake your the one that is in retarded dream land

I brought the point up of our world going to the digital age,

Who gives a shit about the ounce of silver being physical? the only reason that people view that block of gray junk as valuable is because the world knows of it

Bitcoin is no different than if the whole community here was using pooka shells or something as the currency, We (well most) believe that bitcoin has value, not only that we believe that bitcoin has alot more benefits than what is out there now,

Once more people realize this there is nothing stopping the price of bitcoin to be equivalent of the silver market in its own time


Apple during its run up had its bears, Anything in the world has people that disagree/dont believe in it, its just how the way the world woks there are those who disagree, but i believe in this case its only a matter of time before the world may see the true value of bitcoin

If im wrong oh well i lost money, I can make more of it.

I have no idea what you are trying to say.  At first I assumed you were talking to me since I'm the one that mentioned waking up, but I'm having trouble understanding how your comments relate to anything I said.  It seems you're just attacking me again for no good reason.  If you would like to have a discussion, please drop the attitude and make your points clearly.

Now, what would you like me to clarify?  The only statement I made was pointing out that there are 2000x as many ounces of gold as there are bitcoins and that comparing one ounce to one bitcoin is an arbitrary comparison.  If you disagree, please explain why without the personal attacks.  If you do agree, please quit attacking me.

When did I ever compare 1 bitcoin to 1 ounce?

I was implying that comparing the 2 markets is a retarded point and ignoring bitcoin just because it is smaller is ignorant,

How long has gold/silver been around in this world in comparison to bitcoin? it has AGES of time before bitcoin

my point was that do you think that gold just started off at whatever X USD you said? no you clown it gradually made its way to where it is now, the stuff is constantly being mined and there is no real determined number of how much there is,

Unlike Gold and Silver, Bitcoin has a determined number of how many there will be in existance, (edit: We know a General Idea of how many there will be in the end), this is a huge factor on why i think if not now then in the end bitcoin will be worth so much more than it is,

 You can compare the 2 all you want and say that its a joke but my point is what is stopping bitcoin from reaching the markets that gold and silver is in its own time? nothing. Everyone involved that are the bigger players, (businesses and miners)are presumably here til the end

as I said, there are people who disagree with Everything in this world regardless of the subject, bitcoin is no different  

Edit:
I forgot to add in the beginning that I knew you would have trouble understanding, Clown

I didn't say that.  In fact, I wasn't replying to you.  But you don't care, you just want to attack me.

What really bugs me is that in spite of the fact that I agree with most of your positions, you still insist on attacking me.  You've made me your enemy and you don't even read what I say.  You just attack me for some position I never said I held.

All time high in 2013 ??  It's a matter of days !   100$ in 2013 would not be so surprising for me !

Done !

http://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/18urz7/bitcoin_at_parity_with_silver/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/18urz7/bitcoin_at_parity_with_silver/)

Gold and silver are perfectly suited for being money?  Okay, I'll give you $10,000 for 1oz of Silver if you personally deliver it to me within the hour.  Actually, I take that back, I don't want 1oz.  Since it's easily divisible as you say, give me exactly 0.98765 ounces in 1 hour, and you have your 10 grand. 

That's one hell of a deal I'm giving you.  Lucky for you silver is perfectly suitable so you should have no problem fulfilling this request.  Tick, tock.

Absolute classic. Love it!



Great!  :)

The last time I saw someone post '$100 this year' was right before the last $32 peak in 2011, and we finished the year barely above $2.  I hope it won't be the same this time around.