Bitcoin Forum

The way I see it is that these big exchanges are what is (somewhat) stabilising the price of Bitcoins. They're not only stabilising the price, but they're giving us the price. Gox is one of the first places to check the price of Bitcoins, and it's where most other services get their prices from.

So my question is: how would we determine a Bitcoin's value without these exchanges/central services?

with state MSB laws we will only ever have big exchanges, get used to it.

I think the long-term idea is that domestically oriented Bitcoin exchanges become less and less necessary as bitcoin transactions become ubiquitous. That may or may not have anything to do with what happens overseas though.

bitcoin hopefully will be a currency all by itself oneday so exchanges wont be necassery

this idea i would support, with globalisation there is no other choice

Remember the US market isn't all encompassing, there's lots of room for exchanges elsewhere in the world, hopefully somebody makes a stand allowing an exchange and disallowing the americans to seize/freeze/mess with their assets.

yes bitcoin does need big exchanges for the price to be steady. if there where no big exchanges to go by there would be mass confusion in the value of bitcoin. it would be a huge pain in the ass for someone to bulk buy bitcoin or bulk sell. I think the exchanges like mtgox should be used for volume trading and there should be local money exchanges like at air ports who buy and sell bitcoin in smaller volume. I also think .ci
company's like Western Union could cash in on bitcoin by becoming exchanges thus allowing people to send money anywhere there is a Western Union and cash it out on the other side.

^this^

Bitcoin needs fiat, like it or not. Without fiat it will only be a niche item for a few techies and criminals. If you want that then so be it, but something else will fill the vacuum that Bitcoin should have had; perhaps something rather less open.

Bitcoin isn't going to replace fiat for a huge number of reasons, but it damn well should replace it for online 'cash' payments, micro transactions (once fees/dust issues are fixed), and international transfers.

Bitcoin only needs fiat until the world is using it and nobody want fiat anymore. at this point there will be a set value for bitcoin because it will have reached saturation point. when there is a world full of people using bitcoin the value will be the most stable. if another 1000 people come on board at this point it won't even move the value by fractions.
At the moment bitcoin needs big exchanges and small ones, it also needs fiat. this is just a growing pain for bitcoin. there is no telling how long market saturation will take if it ever does but this is my forecast.

if, for example, you think of bitcoin as gold, the physical commodity, then exchanges around the world give us the "spot price" of gold, which at present is falling after a decade of gains, and while that is the "official" price of gold, and for many people the indicator as to whether they should buy or sell gold, there is also the price people are prepared to pay, p2p, or via dealers, which is more in line with true supply and demand - of the physical gold ...

bitcoins exchanges will always be needed for investment purposes, and there will always be these "bitcoin spot" prices depending on whether its being traded on exchanges as a currency or a commodity, but p2p and for buying things - people will always be free to set their own prices, depending on their idea of value, oversupply, shortage, etc

The world will always need fiat (foreseeable future). To think otherwise is to be drinking Bitcoin Kool Aid. I'm a big proponent of Bitcoin/cryptocoins but it has a place, and that place isn't everywhere.

I think it could be awesome for mobile payment systems and online payment systems, so could be the best electronic alternative to cash. Which was the original plan of course. Other technologies, which may involve Bitcoin, will deal with things like credit (OT, Ripple). And more coins will handle some areas too.

But fiat currencies are not going away. Far to pervasive, important internationally, and Bitcoin is not the be all and end all. Bitcoin also needs an Internet connection, so you're always going to need fiat cash for a start. Maybe less often though, that's for sure.

No we need many smaller exchanges, local exchanges, and p2p exchanges

All we really need is price discovery for goods and services in terms of Bitcoin. People should always be able to acquire bitcoin considering all they really need to do is start mining them. If somebody wants to buy $10,000 worth of bitcoin and no exchanges exist to do that easily or securely, simply buy $10,000 worth of mining hardware and get cracking. It might take a while to get there, but the point is nobody will ever deprive you of access to Bitcoin.

It's getting harder and harder for the "average person" to get into mining though. There aren't many people who have $10k lying around to gamble unfortunately. Personally, I hope to make a few BTC from an online service that I plan on announcing in about a month. The only choice people are going to be left with eventually is buying it because mining will be too hard, and most people don't have the skills/funds to start an online service. That's why I don't think we'll be getting out of the fiat -> bitcoin method for a long time.

How is mining getting more difficult? Avalon ASIC allow you just simply plug in and go. The mining software is built in. No need to be a techie in the slightest. There are plenty of people who want to buy $10,000 worth of bitcoin, and every other amount, too. $10,000 can get you several ASICs of varying sizes. Oh, and now these little USB ASICs. Naa, if you live in a country that doesn't have easy purchasing of BTC's it's not too difficult to mine the BTC's you want.

Well for starters, it's impossible to create a profit with a single GPU now.

As for ASICS, they'd be alright if you could get one, but there's a long waiting list, a lot of scammy sites, and very high prices since they're quite new on the market. Those USB ASICS will make very little, if any, profit if you got one today.

If you remove the expectation that mining has to be profitable then it's not a problem. I think there are plenty of miners out there who enjoy getting bitcoins without going through the exchange and also enjoy mining just to help protect the network.

We will always need exchanges as bitcoin will never be able to completely replace the dollar.

Since complying with MSB laws is expensive and difficult there only ever will be big exchanges.

I'll be disappointed if Bitcoin DOESN'T replace the Dollar.