Bitcoin Forum

My very rough estimate is that Bitcoin is currently 80-90% speculation and maybe 10-20% trade/commerce etc

In addition to being a store of value, I think a currency really needs some commerce, trading, bartering etc to provide a true price discovery and help stabilize the price, it gives it some utility, keeps it in everyone's face on a day to day basis.

I think Bitcoin would do better if it was a 50-50% spit..

Now we've got these alt-coins going nuts, with just about all of them increasing 100-200% in the past few days. I mean "InfiniteCoin" has doubled in value?? really? I thought we were trying to avoid the QE.

These alt coins are so far removed from any real price discovery that who knows what the real price is. I mean 1.2 billion dollar market cap for Litecoin, seriously? 

Satoshi started with a nice premise.. stop the inflation, lets have a currency limited to 21 million units. but now the greed has taken over and people are buying anything and everything and pumping the shit out of it trying to boost the price.  So now our 21 million units is now 21m + 84m (litecoin) plus billions more spread across 40 other alt coins.  In our greed we've collectively become our own Ben Bernanke..

Then you've got the likes of Max Keiser relentlessly pumping Bitcoin, and now pumping Litecoin (right after he bought a shitload no doubt).  I mean within days of his price prediction for Litecoin the price rose to with $1 of his target.. Its clear as day he is leading the herd on that one, and he is having a similar effect on bitcoin prices.. i mean would it hurt to say "Now prices will consolidate for a while".. no need to pump this thing like silver..

The world of decentralized crypto-currencies is determined by consensus.. if we collectively agree that 21 million units is not enough then we will all adopt more altcoins and increase the number.. but I liked the 21 million idea, i'm going to cast my vote for just one, Bitcoin, and to support that I will only shop with merchants and exchanges who deal in only Bitcoin.  If a merchant chooses to accept other altcoins then you've lost my business.

So join me in casting your vote for Bitcoin, shop where Bitcoins are the only cypto currency accepted.

/rant

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1bxrrw/playing_devils_advocate_why_bitcoin_will_crash_to/c9bhvme

There is a very interesting here
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/20/money-trading-economy-foreign-exchange-markets-economy

Satoshi wanted to stop inflation? That's news to me. Do you have a link to that?

Thanks, so the gist here is given the choice of either a healthy stable economy or profit greatly, just about everyone chooses profit greatly.. and thats what we are seeing right now with the altcoins.

Sorry, maybe not inflation specifically, but the bank bailouts and central bank money printing etc..

That is exactly what we are seeing, and why the coins with huge inflation have such high market caps. Greed has taken over.

I like to think this is just a pathology caused by the shitty post Bretton Woods system, and that the world market would otherwise naturally converge on a standard currency if left to its own devices, which it can't do because nation states won't give up their regional currency monopolies.  I guess we're currently seeing this experiment happen on a small scale with Bitcoin and the alt-coins.  :)

You are overthinking this. People think that bitcoin and litecoin are almost the same thing while litecoin is cheaper and has more potential.

I was talking about our international currency system talked about in the article PinkPotatos posted.

the way i imagine it is like this.

imagine bitcoin was the Euro.

if we all accept Euro and had only one body of leadership Eurozone/bitcoin foundation. they will inevitably want to conform to the laws of where they live eurozone in germany/bitcoin in america. which leaves other countries in disagreement. some countries then want to split away from the euro/bitcoin and adopt their own currency.

EG americans love bitcoin, alot of european developers love litecoin, australians love ozcoin, and a few UK folk like feathercoin.

even so bitcoin will remain dominant and the freedom of people to choose their preferred coin should be that, a freedom. we should not require referendums and politics to dictate currencies (which is currently happening in UK and europe)

Its going to be very hard to get merchants to accept even 1 cryptocurrency.  The cost in software and in training staff is very high.  There is no way they will install support for 2.

There can only be one. 

I disagree. If a merchant can accept Bitcoin, he can also accept Litecoin without almost any extra infrastructure cost.     

Merchants don't need to train staff for any cryptocurrencies. Online merchants at least. All they need to do is sign up for a processing account, that accepts a bunch of cryptos and converts them into fiat currencies on the fly. Users can use any of those cryptos to pay, the processing site uses current exchange rate to convert to USD or whatever fiat merchant chooses. That's how it works. At least until fiat currencies exist and merchants need to pay their business fees in fiat.

I am sure down the road offline stores can also install a device that can recognize QR-code of any crypto from user's smartphone or paper bill and again, this device would be connected to a processing center to immediately convert into fiat. Staff don't need to be trained any more than they were trained to swipe a credit card, no matter what card it is - visa, master card, etc.

So you think 0% of the merchant's software can be reused from bitcoin to an altcoin.

Just like none of the altcoins use any parts of bitcoin protocol/software... [sarc]

I suspect the difference between us is that I have run shops and trained people to take credit card payments.  It takes time.  And staff turnover is high so anything that adds to that time is bad.  Technically you are correct but in business terms, you will find that people dealing with the public will not want to handle 50 altcoins. I expect a trade body will endorse 1 and that will cause the entire market to use that one.

What's your estimation on speculation and trade/commerce % for US dollar?

Throwing just some thoughts here. So Visa hasn't got ANY competition?

Essentially no.  Newcomers have been locked out of that market for a long long time.

Not sure why you mention it though?  All credit cards use the same machine for payment so you train for 1 you train for all.  Bitcoin is an alternative to the dollar as well as an alternative to credit cards. 

Or are you thinking that Bitcoin payments would be done via the same credit card terminals? 

The same POS for all altcoins- for sure.  The same terminal with credit cards?  Of course!

Hey OP, you are totalitarian. You don't like free markets. You want Stalin's IronFistTopDownCoin.

Chaos is a natural bitch if you don't design for it to be your friend (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349869.msg3752793#msg3752793).

good comment, thanks.


the crypto-world needs competition and needs Litecoin. its good for the whole system.

So shop staff only need to be trained to use 1 terminal.  That's a very elegant solution.

This comment alone shows how little you truly believe in bitcoin. Competition is healthy.

Not true, in this decentralized crypto world, majority rules.. and at the moment the greedy alt-coin pumpers are convincing many to value profit over everything else.

I'm simply saying rather than let greed drive our direction, make a stance and let it be known that you prefer Bitcoin.

These alt-coins will always be around, and they do bring some benefits.. but with figureheads like Max Keiser now spruiking LTC and BTC like they are the same thing, newcomers will consider them the same and then our 21 million base just became 105 million. I liked the 21 million base.

The number of coins is arbitrary and totally meaningless. What matters it that the supply is known and cannot be arbitrarily and secretly manipulated by a central authority.

Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred crypto-coins contend.

All Satoshi wanted to do was prove that his idea of how to send money securely online without double-spending, worked. That's all. Everything else is speculation projected onto him as he's a blank slate who hardly made a political comment.

Bitcoin is a technological breakthrough, not a political one. And Satoshi made it open source so anyone could clone and amend it if they wanted.

If people want to buy altcoins, they are free to spend their money. If they want to make and mine altcoins, they are free to spend their time. Don't know what it's got to do with you.

As for the politics, lets keep that out. Imagine if MP3 had been released and people said, you can only use this technology if you want to download for free, and if you haven't bought into the pirate world, you are excluded. How would that have affected how many songs got released in MP3 format? Think about it. Politicising technology narrows it's market.

Yes, exactly! I see this in the future with consumers leaning towards the most brandable coins.

Check out my GoldCoin Report™ from last night below (vvvvv) where I make my case for the altcoins!  :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtPpQQQF8mE

My speculation:

Profiting greatly is one cornerstone of a healthy, stable economy...

AnonyMint,

we debase decentrally, with alt-coins. Period :)

Bitcoin really has one hell of a lock-in model. So I find it surprising that LiteCoin (in particular) is able to make reasonable headway. I had written it off. In fact, being human and having invested in BTC (like the OP I presume), it kind of bothered me until I decided to can't-beat-em-join-em buy some LTC with BTC over at BTC-e. That was pretty easy and soothed my emotions ;)

Also, I find it amusing in self-reflection that I am jealous of someone making 20x in a couple weeks when I "only" made 2x.

But overall, look, I think the fact that there is demand for the alt coins shows that there is just huge pent-up demand for all cryptocurrency, just the whole concept of it, people are looking for something to save away their wealth safely. This can only benefit BTC as the clear front-runner.

Agreed, I have noted that too in my writings.

Btw, I probably contributed to the launch of the Litecoin price rise. Go see my postings in the Problem With Altcoins thread in early November. I slayed the notion of lock-in for Bitcoin. After that, Litecoin took off. I dunno  :-\

Also see my postings in the How to Hedge Against Bitcoin Collapse thread right before LTC blasted off.

All in Economics subforum.

Note the altcoins will likely be more volatile and many people will get burned badly.

Coca Cola and Ford were the first. So what. People don't want to wear all the same clothes, drive the same cars, drink the same drink, use the same coins. Diversity.

Here is where I had written:

I don't think there is demand for every crap coin out there. Litecoin is considered the cheap bitcoin by most of the newcomers and they see greater potential. Also there are some coins like namecoin / primecon / ppcoin that people put money on because they look somehow different.
Aside from those don't expect any of the other rip-offs to gain actual traction.