Bitcoin Forum

We now have a European bank account so can accept deposits cheaply from the EU. email for details.

This is great news.   I'll definetely open an account now.

This is cool.

And how will this operate? You'll convert received EUR to USD or are you actually creating a EUR<->BTC exchange?

I'm just going to convert EUR -> USD right now to keep things simple. I might set up EUR <-> BTC later if the volume is big enough.
I'll use this exchange rate: http://xurrency.com/api/eur/usd/1

Hum, I'd like to register, but there's something wrong about the certificate.  I don't know much about these stuff.  I guess I should download the certificate somewhere.

http://grondilu.freeshell.org/error-mtgox.png

The base certificates should have been shipped with your OS or your Browser, otherwise it is not really secure, because you trust the certificate issuer that they are who they claim.

This is great and will likely mark the start of yet another BITCOIN RALLY phase.
It may take up to mid/end next week until transfers are on MtGox, but then... a potential rally is on the horizon.

A good exchange rate!  Not ripping people off with bad rates like most exchangers.  I'm looking forward to this!  Will it be possible to withdraw EUR as well?

strule: yes you should be able to withdraw Euros middle of next week.

Awesome! :)

now we talk seriously, finally...

At least within europe, MtGox now represents a truly big and easy to handle exchange, similar to normal ways tk trade stocks, etfs, funds, etc.

If some bigger players enter the market, we can easily see 10x, 100x fold increases in bitcoin value, as there is not much required to move the market substantially.

Some folks selling currently between 0.3 and 0.35 might regret it.

What do you mean by bigger players? And 100x value? Not too soon I bet... But seems you have some financial experience, could you please explain some more? Thanks

I join the question.

To your questions:

1) Bigger players are investors / speculators who invest more than 10k USD into bitcoins. I know a few of them personally who are actively considering doing that (I will never be able to guarantee what they do, but they are serious). Some people like them can easily pump in >100 k USD if they want. If you think about just a few of them entering, the market will already rise a lot. If hundreds of them enter.. you can imagine more.

2) 100x seems illusionary, but in reality that is not impossible even in the near term. Two examples:
 a) Amazon started trading at the NASDAQ in May 1997 at 2.4 $. In May 1999 they were at 110$ (up 45x, and don't forget that here we are talking huge market cap, 50 Billion $ at the 110$ high.)
 b) Bitcoins increased from 0.003 in May 2010 (see bitcoinmarket) to 0.3 in November 2010, an increase of 100x in 6 months. BTC has done it already. Doing it again is not out of question.

And finally, it is good that some of you don't believe that this happens, because based on sentiment analysis, this means that we are not yet anywhere close to the peak. Only if more than 95% of folks believe that it can't go higher are we close to a high.

You are right.   Bitcoin is in viral growth mode.    100x is not out of the question.   And that's just getting started.   Remember this is not a stock like amazon.   This is a global currency a real game changer possibly the most important development in finance in the past 1000 years.    If it can scale (technical hurdle) and breach regulatory barriers (legal) and become user friendly (matter of time; infrastructure will grow rapidly over the next 18 months) then 1000x from here is within reach.    1000x would give us a market cap of 1.5 billion still way less than a market cap for a stock.  There's still upside from there.     The market value of a global currency in widespread use would be in the trillions.    However before that would happen you can bet that TPTB would take notice and take action.   Initially this would be viewed as detrimental but the smart money would view it correctly as desperation by distributors of rapidly depreciating fiat try to protect their product.      There may be others but bitcoin looks to be the gold standard of the future.    Quanum money (see Peter Shor's latest research) is probably the long term answer but it is 20 years away at minimum.

This is all the upside potential.   There are a lot of risks that I haven't covered.   

+1
Agree 100%

My question is how much the price of BitCoins reflects speculation vs actual economic value.

In other words does the GDP of the BitCoin economy really justify the current price, or does the 35 cent cost of a coin indicate lots of people are hoarding coins and artificially reducing the supply?

There is speculation but it is well justified in my opinion.    A stock can have a sky high P/E ratio but as long as the earnings and future growth are coming it is ok.

strule: I can handle some Euro withdrawals now.

How about GBP? I know it's a stretch, I don't even know how many UKians use BitCoin!

The UK is a member of SEPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area) so transfers within Europe have the same fees as domestic transfers. The bank may charge something for currency conversion though.

You may want to re-read the "Misconceptions" section of the page that you quoted.

Perhaps UK banks charge the same for a European transfer as they do for their most expensive UK transfer, but the banks have several levels of service for UK transfers. In practice, UK transfers are usually free and Eurozone transfers are expensive (e.g. Nationwide charges a £25 fee in addition to the currency exchange spread).


Sultan, if you want to sell bitcoins for GBP, I'm buying. Send me a PM.

His statement doesn't contradict it, just misses the "SEPA" between "domestic" and "transfers".

A eurozone transfer is not necessarily SEPA, I would assume SEPA transfers to be much cheaper.

Well let me ask this then. Does any UK user have a way in practice to send Euro transfers economically? If so, which bank and what type of account?

I am in the UK, and I use Barclays France to transfer Euros cheaply.  They are very helpful with UK customers since many of them take out mortgages for french property.  they don't require residency in france afaik.

I was more interested in buying them to be honest. I've only got one BitCoin at the moment! But I'm trying to figure out other ways to make more. I have a few ideas, but the payouts would be incredibly minimalistic.

I'll have to see.

Maybe when I acquire more BitCoins I'll set up a private BitCoin exchanger. But I'm guessing one would need alot of BitCoins for that...

Out of interest, who else is from the UK who is using BitCoins?