Bitcoin Forum

At present difficulty levels, for me personally, anything below $8-$10/BTC is mostly a waste of time mining wise.  The video cards are paid for, but at 0.50 BTC a day, I'm getting what, $60 a month so basically just covering electric.

As the price continues to fall like the last month or two, at what point should we consider it "dead"?

Well unless everybody is doing short sells, I can't see making any money on the trading either really.

Depends on what you mean by dead.  If you are in bitcoins to make money/mine, and you haven't gotten out yet, you are dumb as bricks. 

What do you mean? Bitcoin survived two years being worth less than a dollar - what makes you think it would die because of a price drop?
For the most part, Bitcoin works just as well at 0.1 USD or 10 USD - difficulty will adapt for the changed mining reward, as it has ever since its conception.

Everybody knew right from the start that mining profitability tends to go towards zero - that's how the system is designed and how the market works. Mining was never supposed to earn people large amounts of money, it's just a pretty clever way to get Bitcoin in circulation and secure the transactions at the same time.

I think you really have a serious misconception about a currency. Money is not supposed to earn you money all by itself. Of course you can speculate on anything but that's not what Bitcoin was made for.

Bitcoin will not die because you can't profit from it anymore directly. Start a business with it and be more competitive due to some of its unique features. That's a good way to still profit from Bitcoin - regardless of the price.

Bitcoin is just a sounder form of money - nothing more, nothing less.

Bitcoin's "dead" if the price drops suddenly, so no one's mining, so no one's there to cause the difficulty to adjust back down.

It can be resuscitated, but it's technically "dead in the water" at least a little while when that happens.

No other price point or factor will spell the "death" of Bitcoin until you are completely and utterly unable to find anyone who will take them off your hands in exchange for anything.

"At present difficulty levels,...."

However difficulty is changing continually.  We have had 3 reductions and looking at a ~9% reduction in the next block.

Price by itself is immaterial.  BTC can go back to $1 and it wouldn't hurt me as long as difficulty falls 75%+.

I like bitcoinx charts (although I would adjust them for GH instead)

http://bitcoinx.com/charts/chart_large_lin_30d.png

It graphs the daily return in USD for 100MH of hashing power (thus taking into account both price & difficulty).

My power cost is roughly $0.12 per 100MH per day.  So that is the "dead" line for me.  I think it would be more healthy if we could get >$0.30 per 100 MH.  I wouldn't be looking to expand my rigs until >$0.50 per 100 MH.

Great. I'm all for a rapid fall in the BTC/$ exchange rate followed by an immensely stable price point if so only to drive away all the traders.

If we want to replace the way the economy works I see no point in creating a second Wall Street. The worst part of Wall Street even, the ponzi schemers.

Bitcoin is dead when it has no use for anyone anymore.

Has absolutely nothing to do with 'price point' whatsoever (which is only an exchange rate to another currency anyway).

That's easy....$0.

bitcoin is dead when there is no longer any single client running.

Actually, I find the lower the price goes the easier it is to make money (though not mine).

When 40 cent changes = 10% market swings, there is a LOT of money to be made at these prices.

when people stop mining it's dead- how would transactions get verified without miners?.... plus not everyone sells their coins right away, selling your coins right now is a bad idea.... and it just drives prices even lower.

Unless the eventual outcome is $0 then selling now is a damn good idea.

Actually its 2 clients :)

I would consider bitcoin invaluable if the purchasing power drops significantly under the cumulative average cost of creating them which is around one order of magnitude under the current price. But even then the hashrate would probably adapt and the new difficulty would adjust so this will never happen unless there is a sudden collapse of the network.

I don't mine, and never have. I don't consider "mining" to be of interest until we're at the level of ASIC/sASIC/FPGA. At that point (and we're very near) I'm going to put together a wall-socket mining system drawing almost no power and using the Wifi everyone has already.

It's not meant to make the owner money, it's meant to make sure that Bitcoin works and can be trusted. It's your own cheap little way of supporting a better currency and financial system, and there are a lot of people who'd buy and install one just to show their support.

Hopefully none of them will join pools, or ever sell any coins that might be "mined":

For me price is not to important so long as transactions move.  I can run my store with bitcoin being 2 cents.  

With the price drops, the difficulty is slowly dropping as well.  I can see bitcoin going all the way down to $2, with difficulty going to about half of what it is.  At that point the network size will be closer to 6TH and electricity costs will be less of a drain on the system.  

1 BTC = $1 would be nice, at least for people used to dealing in $US.
Similar to how CAD, AUD, NZD plug along at close to par values.
And difficulty about 1/4 what it is now.

What matters is that people see a need to transact in BTC, that it provides something that they can't get with the banking system - the ability to quietly exchange money without being "watched", without needing approval to open an account, to trade without being managed, out from under the thumb of a gangster/bankster mafia.

If the majority would wake up and take hold of their future they could break free of the oppression and terraform a new economic reality. Hooooowl. Is that enough of a rally cry...

How could bitcoin thrive at 1 dollar? That doesn't give 10000 people enough for a small house or everyone in the US enough for one meal. Bitcoin is a little toy at $1.

This.  The sooner we lose the skeevy pump and dump crowd, the better.  People like Atlas who just want to attract buyers of Bitcoin as a get rich quick commodity make it impossible for Bitcoin to succeed as a currency.  I hope they all go broke.

...What?

You want the price to be like $100/BTC with 10,000 people?  We only have like 50,000 users or something.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting.  Is a dollar at little toy at...$1?  I assume you're suggesting that 21,000,000 coins spread among a population of ~7 billion would be pointless if they are worth $1 each.  

The point is that if 7 billion people are using BTC there won't be a fiat/BTC conversion rate.  If BTC is used by so many people, deflation would have long ago kicked in.  

Or, another way to look at it would be that if BTC was worth a dollar (but still accepted by everyone), the same dollar today would be worth thousands then.

But, I must say you allude to a very interesting point.  That point can be phrased as a question:  How do we build a large economy if people can't buy houses?  The housing example is a good one because there simply cannot be enough coins in existence to support everyone buying their houses, cars, etc. in BTC if it's worth $1.  This isn't even close to being feasible at it's current exchange rate or even $30.  And yet, even on this forum we see things like people selling businesses and gemstones that cost like 20 grand.  Nobody should have that many BTC unless they paid for them with cash.  Too few people with too many BTC.

So, we need to learn from the implications of this.

1.)   Don't start out worrying about whether or you can buy a huge house or a car with BTC.  It needs to start small.  If the current supply-to-value ratio of BTC wouldn't support everyone in the whole world buying the same product as you intend to purchase, then you shouldn't buy it anyway.

2.)  This means that you need interest.  Interest comes from desire.  Peoples' desires include wanting to be safe and connected, so focus on that.  Security and ease of connectivity need to be of primary focus.  Security basically comes down to having your BTC insured so you don't have to worry about your account getting hacked.  

3.)  Ease of connectivity means we need coders who will actually make the Bitcoin client easy to use -- and I said easy as in easy for a kindergartener to understand and use.  Something like "Download?"  And after the download, you now have the client, a miner (preconfigured), an account at a pool, and an account at an exchange.  And maybe like a hotline number to call.  How about a Bitcoin business where it is the job of the employees to simply explain the whole goddamn thing to people?

4.)  If and when interest grows such that deflation truly sets in, you will finally be ready to think about purchasing houses and cars.  By that time, you will also be able to make all the repairs on your house and buy all the tools to do them with BTC.

There is a serious flaw with any currency (or in any economy) in which a very small number of people hold a great % the currency.  This is one reason I hate SC and it's dipshit spokesman.  But right now I suspect a very number of people hold at least 50% of BTC.  There's not nearly enough volume on the exchanges to explain the distribution of all 7 million+ BTC.

Seems to me bitcoin is dead where its been hanging at for weeks, 4 to 5 bux a bitcoin is not helping anyone.  To expensive to create them with the cards and electricity cost, selling, trading too risky for way to low of profit, the only way bitcoin gets back to where it needs to be seems to be if some company starts accepting them, newegg, amazon something like that or when all the bitcoins have been made, then maybe the value would rise.  It is a toy at this price point, needs to be 10 to 15 a bitcoin to actually pay for itself, pay for anything make it work.  1 buck sucks, 4 bux sucks, kinda dead and stuck for past month, not looking good.

True that !

So are these altruists finding 5 an hour going to stop now?

0.0001 then i will abandon bitcoin :P

I also don't like these low prices. Not because of the price itself, but because a small variation in price has a huge impact in someone's wallet. And the price has been moving a lot lately, mostly down...

You will abandon it to me. I'll be buying every coin for my collection. How sweet would a full set be?

Not so fast - I'm bidding twice that! :)

fine fine, but its never going down there :) and even if it does, i may not sell i would only have 0.0036 USD for it, i would just stop caring for it.

Imagine what you could do if bitcoin did go to $0.0001 ...you could buy all the bitcoins in existence for less than $1000.  You could then peg the price of bitcoin at around $1 ...selling for $1.05 and buying for $0.95.  People would then know the price of bitcoin wouldn't fall below $0.95 (assuming they trust you to maintain the peg).  They also know you will be selling more as the price rises above $1.05.  Bitcoin would be used to facilitate private p2p transactions as it was intended and the coins would slowly return to circulation and you would make a fortune.  This of course is why it would be next to impossible for someone to corner the market on all bitcoins like this.

I gave some bitcoins for a birth recently. The CD will hopefully not get lost and yes, I have a copy in my backup but the point is if she knows about bitcoin when she turns 18, she will definitely know what to do with it. If not, well then be it. Same with my savings in Bitcoins. I would not sell at 1 what I bought at 9 as I did not put all my savings in like other dudes so I'm not forced to cut my losses.

What the hell dudes? Bitcoin is not here for miners to make money. Miner profits have an indirect effect on network security and stability, that's the extent of its importance. And there enough people who will continue to hash for the sake of the network, so hashing power will never be zero.

Also, Bitcoin is a toy because it doesn't "pay for itself"? It's the other way around, it's a toy as long as you see it as a mining game. Try using it for a change.

Anyway, the pricepoint it is dead is obviously $0. In other words, when a fatal vulnerability is discovered.

If bitcoin dies then I will buy as much of it as I can and do all of the mining with my GPU at work for free.

I will then start selling once all 21 million are mined.

$0.00

/thread

That would be sometime late in year 2140.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply

So more like: My great^N-grand-children will start selling it.

Brilliant point Steve.

If a small-ish group of people can buy the daily supply with a smallish amount of money, I would say that the system is in it's death throes.  1000 people spending $10/day could do so at 7200/day and a price of $1.40-ish.  So, I would say that we are uncomfortably close at this point and that interest would likely drain away.  Judging from the network activity, that seems to be occurring.

But it seems to me that it is also possible that rather than death, we could have some sort of a 'mothball' situation where current value holders put enough effort in to keep the system basically going.  If/when an obvious and significant need for such a solution appears, it could be that the existing Bitcoin solution is more viable than alternate newer solutions or variants of the Bitcoin solution.

Technically there will never be 21 million bitcoins in existence... just slightly below that amount.  By 2033 there should be around 99.2% of all bitcoins that are going to be mined in circulation.

According to your logic, Bitcoin was dead 2 years ago.

But let's examine something. If the price went back to $1, Bitcoin would be just like it was when it was previously $1, except for the following:
- many new exchanges
- many new merchant solutions
- many new vendors
- stronger hashrate
- stronger brand recognition
- longer lifetime (more reasonable to trust)
- stronger client software
- no displacement by multiple competing chains
- etc.

If Bitcoin was viable when it was previously $1 WITHOUT all those subsequent improvements, it'd be reasonable to think it's viable at $1 WITH all those improvements.

How about we gentlemanly split it in the middle: sometime beteween 2100 and 2104 the number of
mined coins will reach 20,999,999.000,000,00 ? The last coin will never be mined to completion.

The enumeration of improvements is exactly why I consider the solution to be dying.  It is a bad omen to me that even with all of those things you've outlined, the whole systems capital creation can still be purchased for a small outlay.

This surprises me.  I would not have expected it to come to this, and am deep in the red on my current BTC bet due to where I started accumulating (durring the Mt Gox down-time.)  But as always, I did not put enough money in that I could not afford to lose with a chuckle.  Indeed, I outlined a certain amount that I expected to put in and still have a fair amount of power dry and am still buying on dips.

BTC may or may not pay off for me in the end (years from now.)  In the mean time, if I want to support efforts which happen to be out of favor with governments/financial institutions, Bitcoin is useful.  I can buy some Bitcoin for USD and get it to the target within minutes and thus not lose value in spite of the rather unhappy longer term trend of USD/BTC value.  It is, of course, up to them to transfer it back to their chosen currency.

You're letting the massive speculative bubble up to $30, and the subsequent fall, cloud your judgement.

Consider the market price to be made of two components, the fundamental value and the speculative value. In an asset like Bitcoin, the speculative value will be a very large portion of the market price, because the investment case for Bitcoins is extremely strong (ie - if Bitcoin succeeds, the price of a coin will skyrocket, and if it fails, it will fall toward zero). The result is that the fundamental value component is obfuscated by the extremely volatile speculative value component - and thus the fundamental value may be far higher or far lower than the market price at any given time.

For evidence of this, consider that the fundamental value of Bitcoins didn't increase 30-fold when the price went from $1 to $30. Similarly, when the price fell from $10 to $5, the fundamental value did not halve. It is the speculative component which drives market price right now, and for the foreseeable future. Bitcoin is simply too disruptive a technology to avoid this phenomenon.

The price falling to current levels is indicative of a change in speculative assessment, not fundamental assessment. It takes a wise, patient investor with nerves of steel to understand this and act accordingly - buying when the speculative value has dropped the market price below the fundamental value.

The simple lesson is this:  a falling price does not indicate a less valuable Bitcoin, and a rising price does not indicate a more valuable Bitcoin. Ignore the market price, try to discover the fundamental value of these things, and then act/invest accordingly. I think the fundamental value of this technology is massive, and until a serious security flaw is discovered in the protocol, my long-term outlook for the market price of a bitcoin is very bullish. Short-term, I have to take a shot of tequila sometimes to calm the nerves and like you said, don't invest more than you can be comfortable losing.

+1. Very well said.


Bitcoin is already a huge success in my opinion. Its success is not gauged by its price, but would be better served if its price was on par with its current "fundamental value".
I'm not sure where that exact value is, but my speculation is somewhere between $3 dollars to $4 dollars for the next several months. Anything lower than that I consider a steel and will be investing heavily. Also, it does make a lot of since for it to be driven lower than its fundamental value for that has always been the history of bubbles deflating. My guess (speculation) is the all time low will be somewhere between $2 to $3.

One thing I observed with the huge price increase to $30 was a mentality of the limited supply nature of Bitcoin. After going that high, reality started to set in that it couldn't be sustained with the current money injection rate and has continued a decline ever since. As the price starts to approach levels only seen before the huge bull run, I fully expect the "limited" supply mentality to start to kick in and create a very rock solid bottom. As for the the mining aspect, I'm fully confident in the miners like my self that will continue to support bitcoin even at a loss (call it a hobby). Why? Where else is there such a system that could compete with the federal reserve. It is truly a priceless technology.
The tragic thing would be if the prices deviated to such an extreme from its fundamental price for a second time. With the ability to short and mature bitcoin investing, I really hope relatively and sudden high prices do not happen again.

Bitcoin will not die, but will continue to live. Rid yourselves of fear and greed and find better reasons to support this. Government and Banking Cartels have really screwed us in so many ways. Bitcoin is truly a powerful tool for individuals to be free.
 

The last two posts were spot on. I cant put it better.

If people quit freaking out the short term I think bitcoin will only grow at sure and steady pace. Its all about developing services and supporting the system anyway we can. The limited supply I think will kick in in about 18 months from now.. my estimates anyway...

I don't believe that I am to a great degree.  It's likely that a lot of us are allowing our hope for the solution and disgust at the current 'official' monetary systems to cloud our judgement.  I try to avoid that as well.


As I said, I continue to fill in to the USD amount I've chosen to convert.  I may even up the amount (again) as I have more disposable USD and the Bitcoin network remains sound and unexploited (in a technical way.)

I am actually more than comfortable with the appearance of morbidity for Bitcoin for the simple reason that it would, hopefully, induce the crooks who have obtained their coin through theft to liquidate and create a period of time when a higher percentage of people are interested in Bitcoin were so on the basis of theory (technical and/or monetary theory that is.)  More like it probably was back in the good old days a year or two ago.

Depending on how well namecoins hold their value people will be able to mine at lower market prices using merged mining.  Right now, merged mining gives a miner about 45% more income for the same power consumption (although few pools are using merged mining right now).


Agreed, those were some good posts.  Last year I was largely uncertain about Bitcoin's viability but following the huge bubble I'm fairly optimistic about Bitcoin's future.

This was kind of my point... it wasn't about being a "ponzi scheme trader" or whatever the guy with 8 posts was saying.. It was more like a 9% decrease in difficulty versus a 66% drop in price makes it difficult to sustain.

For me below $10/BTC it's not really worth much to *me personally*, because I mine, and because I have (2) daytime jobs already, and have no desire to speculate or trade.  But how can I buy something when the value is fluctuating so much, mainly in the downward direction?

Sounds good.

What I'd like to do, since there are many places to spend it:

I would like to buy several $100 bills from you in USD.  I will offer you $25 each for them.  Next week I will give you $20 each for them, and next month $10.

You'll be able to spend the $10 anywhere you'd like, or, I could buy that $10 from you 2 months from now for 25 cents.

If you prefer coins, I'll buy as many silver dollars as you want to sell for $0.30 each.

Or for pure silver, I'll buy it from you at a year ago's prices.

We'll neglect inflation for the point of all of these.

You cant just ignore the price it cost to create a bitcoin.  That is a major concern when it comes to bitcoin, if you dont mine, bitcoins are not made, if you cant make money mining bitcoins then they make no sense.  I dont even mean just mining them and selling them to make money, I am also including if you create bitcoins and they cost 7 dollars to make one bitcoin, then it also doesnt make sense to try to purchase goods or services with bitcoins.  So the cost of mining compared to the value of bitcoin can not be ignored, it is a huge aspect of will bitcoin die, or is bitcoin dead.  It is a toy, just because you can use bitcoin to buy something doesnt make it worthwile.  If it cost more to create a bitcoin then it does to buy something with a dollar vs a bitcoin then bitcoin is not working and will not work.  If you do not mine and you just buy bitcoins, then I guess you can take the mining aspect out of it, but at that point your still buying a bitcoin at 6 bux one month and next month its at 4 bux or less, how does that system make sense, it doesnt, so it needs to correlate with the cost of mining and has to have some type of stability in the 10 to 15 per coin area for everything to work together and for it to all make sense.

Oh I think I'm up to nine posts, or so.

I don't consider the trading of BTC to add anything to Bitcoin's success. A trader can only profit if another loses, and if we're trying to build a new kind of economic system where's the net gain in that?


Correct. And since GPU miners will be replaced by FPGA/sASIC/ASIC the cost of producing bitcoins will continue to fall, even if difficulty stays where it's at.

Who makes Bitcoin liquid, and more easily exchangable into other currencies, if not traders?

Wall Street ponzi scheme HFT trading mumbo jumbo with no basis in actual reality. Bitcoin needs nothing more than miners wanting to recoup the cost of verifying transactions for people to be able to acquire the necessary currency for economic transactions.

A quick read through of the Speculation part of this forum is all that's needed to understand just how sad things can get. "My charts show that we're headed upwards. BUY BUY BUY".

The only way to profit from that is if someone else loses. No net gain for Bitcoin.

1) Mining cost is irrelevant. The purpose of the "difficulty" is a feedback loop to ensure that. We do not value a dollar on how much work people do but on how much the economy grows over time. A failing or failed economy leads to price decline (unless it's propped up by something else as in the USD having utility as a reserve currency). Similarly gold mining companies don't set the price for gold, they react to it, and mine more  or less.

2) Trading does have a purpose - it ensures price discovery and liquidity. Those aren't mumbo jumbo terms. Liquidity means that when I go to buy BTC there is someone ready to sell, and when I want to sell my coin there is someone ready to buy. Without the traders we have no idea what price to assign to BTC. Without them you would be buying/selling BTC on a "black market" as in countries where they try to "fix" the price of a currency, eg. VZ.

3) The fundamental/speculative parts of the value are valid. Most state currencies have a high fundamental part ensured by the states insistence on it's legal use and people actually using it, and then a small speculative component that varies daily as traders get in/out. But Bitcoin is a baby currency and until it matures the speculative part will be higher - it's fundamental value is a measure of how safe people feel holding coins. And for now not too many people feel safe doing that - hence, only speculators do that.

All of this just evolves from human nature. If people were different we would have different economic systems. Surviving a big speculative bubble means we now have to get on with the business of proving BTC has value. If we can't do THAT then it dies, only then.

Mining cost is absolutely not irrelevant.  This is obvious.  Even if the effect is as little as 1-2% (I'd argue it's vastly more at this point) it's not a static 1-2%, it's a variance.  Something else also occurs at a 1-2% variance...trading.

Or, you could look at the difficulty or hash rate relative to value and compare time periods between, say, June, and now.

Why does everyone forget there's a human element involved?  Contrary to nerd belief, there are factors at play that can't be measured numerically. Every miner's (the person-miner pressing 'go,' not your graphics card) perspective varies and the sample size is far too small for the bell curve to apply properly.  Any factor in the Bitcoin economic system is subject to a miner/trader's perception, including difficulty and something else called an electric bill.  The speculative value of Bitcoin plays a big factor in helping a person choose whether to mine or not when the value is low.  Without this speculative value, you'd probably see a current hash rate of...well....me, because I rent with paid-for electricity.

Not to mention that mining gave rise to Bitcoin and Bitcoin only operates with miners (after all, the question of whether miners determine price is a matter of no miners vs. miners period, NOT some number of miners vs. some other number of miners).  It's axiomatic that if you take away all miners, the value will go away too.  Nothing to confirm their value anymore (the program confirms value, but we run the program). 

Also, keep in mind that miners are traders while traders are not necessarily miners.  All miners mine and will eventually trade, and trading influences price.

People need to respect the miners more.  They rule Bitcoin and will always be the most fundamental and necessary element besides the programs and computers themselves.

Who said anything about taking away miners? Sure we need miners. I also mine myself. I said the cost of mining isn't important as in it does not determine the price that Bitcoins trade at. It doesn't even set a lower limit as you might expect by miners not wanting to sell lower than Y. They will be forced to stop mining before they can force the price above their costs.

Some people are thinking that the price of Bitcoin should be X because electricity costs Y. That's what I'm saying is baloney. The cost of mining isn't fixed by electricity since the difficulty is a feedback that adjusts how much electricity is needed per coin.

I agree that it can't be ignored in general, but not in the context you describe. If a coin was a one time thing, like a token of computational power, a work unit, then you would be right. But that's not the case. When you create the metaphorical coin, you create a thing that will persist forever. Its usefulness in the long term is what gives it value. This relates to the inclination of people and businesses to accept Bitcoin, inclination to "hoard" coins, sentiment of the potential users, etc.

Why some people think like you do, is because they don't actually make use of Bitcoin at all. If your only involvement is mining coins and selling them, of course you will see it as a computational work unit. But please keep in mind that it's not even tangential to what Bitcoin is all about.


Why? Just stop creating them if it's not working for you. What's not working is creating them at that cost, not the Bitcoin system in general.


This is the issue about volatility, and I agree that this may be a problem for some, and will be over when we have more speculators in the market, which might take a few years at least. Otherwise, your numbers are arbitrary. You are saying that when the exchange value to dollars are falling, it doesn't make sense to buy? Hell yes. But how do we know what the prices will be at any point in the future? Again, while I agree with the sentiment, an options system can limit the risk, so there is a solution to that waiting to be implemented.

Plus, price does not, and cannot correlate with the cost of mining (although there may be some feedback as thejoint puts it), cost of mining comes to terms with the price, that's the mechanism in place. The difficulty is decreasing, and your 10 to 15 per coin will be less and less, until (if ever) the exchange value increases. So again, those numbers are temporary.

Miners who whine need to quit mining. That's practical reality. I always recommend people not to get into mining in the first place. Hand down mining to professional businesses. Buy shares from mining companies instead, if you really want to invest in that..

Mining cost is not irrelevant, it's just irrelevant to the price of bitcoin.

It's also true that if you take away all demand for bitcoin, then mining will go away.  Mining difficulty follows the price of bitcoin (this has actually been studied and demonstrated several times by different people).  Mining secures the bitcoin network and contributes to the fundamental value of the bitcoin system.  But more miners will not yield higher prices, only the demand for bitcoins relative to the supply determines price (and demand stems from both usage of bitcoin for transactions and speculation).  Miners that keep their bitcoins instead of selling are speculators.  There is no causal relationship between the number of miners or mining difficulty and the bitcoin exchange rate.  However, there is correlation.  The correlation stems from the fact that the number of miners is related to the level of interest in bitcoin.  The more interest in bitcoin, the higher the price, and the more miners there tend to be.

Miners ensure the integrity of the network.  And anyone who's serious about bitcoin has an interest in that.  However I don't really agree that miners "rule" bitcoin.  The miners and security guards in the gold economy are important, but they don't "rule" gold.  I have a rack full of mining equipment because the integrity of the network matters to me.  I am fortunate to have a profitable operation, but even it if were unprofitable, I don't think I'd shut it down (I would stand to lose far more if the integrity of bitcoin were compromised).

+1 Steve.

Like with gold, if buying it on the market is more expensive than mining it, people mine it. Mining expenses per BTC/kg gold follow the market price. As a mining operation is non-trivial (more for gold than for bitcoin) an unexpected decline in the BTC/gold-price leads to "expensive" mining which is not the end of gold/bitcoin.

If you are new to gold your operations will bring gold with a two year delay at least. With bitcoin the delay is on average a month I would guess. Experienced miners can increase their capacities within half a year/two weeks respectively.

With the given investment, miners stick to mining even when it doesn't pay off, speculating it will in the future so as long as mining "doesn't pay off" I know that the majority of the miners has faith in a future for the bitcoin, so no, I'm not worried when mining doesn't pay off. I would be worried if it did.

zero

The price of BTC on the exchanges doesn't mean squat about the "health" of Bitcoin.  A price of 1 BTC= $10,000 or 1 BTC = $0.01 on MtGox only says something about the fiat value of individual BTC portfolios.  If you bought BTC @ $0.01, you might think that BTC is very much alive - despite the precipitous drop from its highs.  If you bought @ $30...well, I can understand why you might be trying to figure out when to completely give up on BTC.   The reality is this: if you hold 10,000 BTC, and can go to your local grocery and exchange 1 BTC for a 2lb chuck roast, you don't give a rat's ass about the price of BTC on some thinly traded, unregulated, foreign exchange that is run by someone in their mom's basement.

Even if the price of BTC dropped so low that the exchanges were no longer profitable and closed, BTC would still be alive as long as people accepted BTC in payment for goods and services.  Bitcoin is dead when no one sees any value in it as a medium of exchange now or in the future.  In that sense, Bitcoin may have never really been alive to begin with.

IMO, bitcoin is still in the "pre-natal" stage of life.  Maybe now that the casino aspects of BTC are fading, people may actually try to develop the utility of bitcoin beyond something that does nothing more than separate fools from their money.

I'd say bitcoin is dead when it hits single digits cents. say 5-9 center per coin.

Yeah all I know is you need miners to make bitcoins.  If it cost more to make bitcoins then a miner can make selling bitcoins then there will be a problem, which is where were at now.  Then you have the human issue, were down to 3.5 bux a bitcoin, way way too low.  I have used bitcoins to buy things so I know what they can do, but it is not main stream enough to be more then a stock like product, buy and sell to make some cash or mine and pay for your equipment at this point and it would take a long damn time to pay for your decent mining rig at 3.5 dollars a bitcoin.  Difficulty is high, electricity is expensive, bitcoin needs miners period, and it neeeds to make sense to mine or bitcoins will end.  I think there is a possibility bitcoins can survive, but it needs to become way more mainstream and it has to have many advantages over using a dollar, your bank account, paypal, and honestly with what you can buy with bitcoins, theres really not much upside to mining bitcoins to buy products or services or buy bitcoins to buy products and services at this point.  If new egg or amazon or something starting taking them, which will never happen because there too unstable, then bitcoins would gain some momentum.  But I think bitcoin is dead at this point, but it is a very young currency so who knows.  I just think the bubble bust, burst, fall, speculators, scams, and now the value of a bitcoin being so low has pretty much ran its course.  We will see if bitcoin can continue.

As some have already said Bitcoin is in it's infancy. There have been a lot of growing pains a long the way but it is still growing and I personally believe that we can only go up from here. Bitcoin needs a breakthrough and I have a feeling something will come along soon that will change our trajectory.

I started mining when Bitcoins were 0.85 cents, and I watched them grow to $30+ and watched MTGox get hacked and go from pennies to $17 and watched scandal after scandal and scam after scam and mis management after mis management and now we are stuck in this current rut.

The good news is a lot of people (myself included) still fundamentally believe in this thing, and (I hate to say it but) I thank god for SilkRoad because of it and other functions like it Bitcoin will weather this storm until we reach that break through that we need.

More than that... we are building things that the price is not yet aware of =)

I appreciate and support the service you are offering cryptoexchange, and this is really not a jab but a curiosity and maybe you can remedy my ignorance... I do not quite understand why it is a selling point to be "Australian owned and operated" heheh

thanks :)

Good question!

The selling point isn't so much that we're from Australia, but rather that Crypto X Change is a legitimate, registered business. Our names are public, you can look us up and find us. We're licensed, compliant with all local laws, and fully-insured. We are as real as a company that exchanges digital currency can be  ;)  Also, it lets other Aussi's know that we are local for them and hopefully that will entice their business. But our exchange is fully global with 25+ inbound currencies and 125+ outbound currencies.

Thanks for the question and feel free to PM us whenever. We've updated our launch plan here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48598.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48598.0)

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

The current price craze is only because of psychological aspect of society. Also Bitcoin is a new, developing market so things like this are expected.

People's moods are like weather - they change often and with little reason.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

no no. it just noobs that are panicking.

Trust or distruct does not affect Bitcoin qualities at all.
It is just people who do not understand them.

Gold is not made significantly less worthy because of any kind of "distrust". Bitcoin is similiar.


+1

Immense amounts of external dis-trust would have consequences for the exchange rate, but it's only positive trust that is essential for the system to function. Some people will use it nonetheless, just because there is nothing to distrust about its functioning principles. This number could be in the millions or hundreds, and will almost certainly fluctuate. Of course, the number of people using the system directly affects its utility. But there is no reason to think that it will ever be zero. Also, this kind of projects have the ability to slumber until the next affirmation of their usefulness. Take Namecoin for instance; it will always be there as long as the threat created by centralized authority is, and there is nothing that can fix it other than a system like Namecoin itself. In the same manner, I2P or Freenet will never die either. They could, maybe in time, be replaced by a much better idea, but those ideas don't tend to come out easy. Bitcoin has a much better chance of going mainstream, because it has better incentives built in and more utility, especially in the current political atmosphere. Just don't expect this to be an easy ride.

The current decrease in price is caused by security flaws at exchanges. As more attack vectors are closed by security measures, bitcoin becomes more secure. So we want major vulnerabilities at mtgox, tradehill, btce and bitcoin client to be discovered as early as possible. The price will drop further, but it's for the better future for bitcoin. 

I disagree. I think this price decrease is caused by exchanges that allow high speed trading. HST operates amplifies the law of diminishing returns. The perceived value of the market psychologically affects the perception of bitcoin by the public. Confidence decreases because of algorithms. If we stop HST, then Bitcoin confidence will increase and hence the value.

I think you may be both right, it is caused by both of these things.
Also another one is a lot of bad Bitcoin-related press lately.

As I said, psychology.

+1
I stand corrected.

I'm not claiming that trust or distrust changes any of bitcoins' built in properties.  I'm saying that distrust in the system as a good way to exchange value and store value will (1) lead to lower and lower prices and (2) fewer and fewer people using it.

There is a battle going on between professional traders. Those who do fastest at arbitrage pay thousands of $$ for some ms less delay for connections between London and New York. They want to make a 5% profit on days the bitcoin drops 10%. Sure if you want to play in that league, you need HFT done by software, you need your client to be close to the exchange etc. but Bitcoin was not made for those guys and it was neither made for those who are too lame to operate HFT software and the community should neither support nor worry about them. They do a service to stabilize the currency which is good for merchants.
There are also long time speculators like me that bought at 9$ and now again at 5$ and are very tempted to buy again when it's dropping further and HFT is not preventing or causing the long time drop or raise.

I guess bitcoin will be dead if the price falls to a level where too many miners stop and a central bank can do a 50% attack on mining. We did not reach this point yet and I hope that all those miners that switched their machines off would switch on again for the sake of the good cause if that ever happens but for now I'm not worried at all.

+1

  I keep hearing this claim, but don't know of any empirical evidence for it.  Can you point me to some?

this is the correct answer.

In my opinion the greatest use of Bitcoin is neither making money mining nor making money trading. It is the facilitation of e-commerce.

The only real price point where Bitcoin is dead is when one bitcoin drops below $.01

lol  ;)

I don't know why the price dropped today. I know the price dropped from $31 due to exactly one thing: Silk Road closing registrations.

Is there some unwritten rule that says "All bitcoin discusions must eventually mention Silk Road"?

I think bitcoin is still useful unless it drops to 1 Satoshi, then basically it is not useful for trade or speculations.

How do you propose why ppl want to use bitcoin then? The only reason i can think of is anonymous transaction.

The concept is nice for all geeks but i dont think it would ever get accepted as currency.

I'm not even talking about the illegal activities yet.

WOW! I just now saw the current price. I haven't looked at it for a couple days.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/6026480513_5612447f73_m.jpg

I was going to post a thread the other day that would address this issue with a solution that others here could've commented on but I got sidetracked with Atlas leaving, and then Ragnar. Perhaps if I, and others, concentrated our energies on important issues, we could get this train back on track. It's so easy, though, to get caught up in the cynical narrative, we tend to forget what exactly is at stake.

I don't know it put my brain into a recursive loop.

1 satoshi = 1E-8 BTC

So if 1 BTC = 1E-8 BTC?

Now that would likely kill BTC if 1 BTC is equal to 1/100,000th of itself.

It's the new math:

http://mathtricks.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/1-2-proof.jpg

I love bitcoin, the concept, it is scientifically sound, great idea.  BUT and a HUGGGGE BUTT.  What do you need it for, what or why do you need to buy something with bitcoin unless its silk road?  Anonomous is the only part I see that it has, but cash can have just as good as anonononymity as Bitcoin so really not a benefit there.  I just dont see it ever hitting mainstream as a currency.  It was a great ride, nice bubble, some people got really really fucking paid off of this like a ponzi scheme and now its just holding on for dear life.  I think its cool, but beyond that it really has lost its purpouse unless many many things change.

Like I keep saying. Crypto-currency is a fundamentally new technology people don't really understand. I remember when fractals were discovered. For a long time, people thought they were only good for making landscape pictures. Now fractals are integral in all areas of science and have revolutionized technology. Bitcoin has incredible possibilities we haven't figured out yet.

People will bitch about early adopters until 2021, when the generation curve really begins to stall.

Sending money instantly across the world with no fees or intervening parties.

What is money?

unless its bitcoin itself, your statement is full of errors.

Dividing by zero when nobody is looking eh?  :P

I understood one thing it may be needed for when back in June I saw someone use it to send $10.5mil worth overseas, with money fully transfering within 30 minutes, and paid only about $15 to do it.

what do you mean "you saw", are you saying they did it in front of you? cause i'm curious to know which exchange allowed such large transaction...

I'm curious if that person overseas is now holding $1.05 million worth of BTC? If so, I'd ask for that $15 fee back.

I wouldn't know. (Did you mean $1.25mil worth?). I hope they liquidated it over time.

Doh! Yes. Edited.

Sorry but i have to call bullshiet. It sounds like a bitcoiners wet dream.

Yeah I call BUll shit tooo, if you have that kind of money your not going to mess with bitcoins to send it, makes no damn sense.  I still stand with the issue that what do you really need bitcoin for except for silk road, and maybe if you want to be anonymous.  Sending money for fees, ok maybe you can save some cash but not really because bitcoins are not worth the same daily so its a pretty big risk to save a couple bucks.  Bank to bank transfers, even paypal isnt that bad for most transactions.  There are many low price money transfer options that you wouldnt need to use bitcoin for that.  Really I only see it as being kind of cool, nerdy, fun in the beginning but pretty pointless unless it becomes stable and real companies start accepting it, then possibly it would make sense.  But I just dont see it recovering to become main stream at this point.

Oh and to answer the question, sending cash through the mail, pretty damn cheap and safe, with tracking.  Cash for gold, cash for old phones, people do it all the time, even a moneygram or similar you can send what you want anonomyous, you dont have to use real information, thats what I mean by cash can be pretty anonomous as well, or however u spell that damn word lol.

It was just under 500,000 BTC at the time. No big deal.

Shit, Bitcoin is dead, down to 2.3 dollars, jesus, what a waste of a cool system.

Funny, the farther the price goes down, the more excited I get.
And I just purchased a whole bunch.
And my optimism in Bitcoin has never been brighter.
The price needed to come down to be sustainable.
I have another order at $2
A much bigger order at $1.5
And all my bitcoin investing money goes in at $1.00

I don't know why but I get excited by this too.  The excitement is not unlike when Bitcoin went over $8/BTC and, unbelievably, kept climbing!

I question the logic of using the price points of $2/BTC, $1.5/BTC, and $1/BTC though.  I expect many people will have bids at these round rates.  Consequently it might be wise to use $2.01/BTC, $1.51/BTC, and $1.01/BTC (paying a tiny bit more to be at the front of the queue).

Best of luck to those of you that believe Bitcoin has a future and are willing to start buying coins.  I highly doubt we'll make it down to early adopter money (I bought most of my coins at $0.02-$0.04 and I still don't really feel like an early adopter).

No bid deal ? tell me how they converted all those BTCs into USD....

Stop fcking bullshiet already,

I dont' think you have that luck to see it dies.

magic my ass.

Keep dreaming.

You might want to ask Bruce Wagner.
I really don't know much about it.

In what sense is $2/BTC "sustainable?"  At that price, the total value of the entire Bitcoin money supply will never be greater than US$42 million, hardly enough to even be worth wiping the bottom of a typical hedge fund manager or bank CEO.  In other words, totally insignificant relative to the world money supply of traditional currencies, which is in the tens of TRILLIONS of dollars.  If it remains at a price in the single digits, BTC will never be anything but a novelty/toy, with zero global impact to speak of.  The price needs to grow by 1,000x, 10,000x or more before it will really start to be a significant force in the world.  Otherwise it will have been just a flash in the pan, nothing but an obscure hobby/entertainment that briefly caught some press attention. 

Yeah, it'll be sustainable, just like collecting any other random little niche commodity like HO-scale model trains is sustainable. 

Sorry, if the Bitcoin community isn't trying to live up to its potential to change the world, then it's not worth my time.

I actually can't wait until BTC gets back to $1.00, so I can buy even more at cheaper prices.

But somehow i feel that it will start rising too early, and again i will be left with not enough bitcoins....

Be nice to have a couple thousand.. I dont have le money though.

Bitcoins at 2 bux are just not worth it.  Why would you need it or buy it at 2 bux a coin?  TO do what buy something you can get for dollars?  Like one poster above said and I have said before, single digits bitcoins are dead and no use to real economy.  At single digits its a nerdy, cool system that you can play with, collect, buy some things online with it, do some trading maybe, but mining is shot too expensive to mine with electricity and difficulty, and unlike what some people say, you need miners to create bitcoins so you cant ignore the cost of creating a bitcoin in this equation of if bitcoin makes sense or is dead.  We need big businesses to accept bitcoin, more stability and a higher stable price at 10 bux or more for bitcoin to have some real type of future and effect in the world.   Its almost hit 2 bux a bitcoin, that price is a dead price.

Imagine if generating (or printing) us dollars were profitable.  If that were true, then us dollars would be printed quite rapidl....oh wait

---

Also, validating/mining will continue and it will still be quite profitable, but primarily for those who are located in areas where cost of electricity is very minimal or free.

Um, how is ten BTC at $2 a coin any different than two BTC at $10 a coin?

Likewise how is mining BTC @ $2USD and 300K difficulty any different than mining BTC @ $10USD and 1.5 mil difficulty?

The same way buying 1 gallon of gas at $4.50 is at buying 1 gallon of gas at $45.00 is not the same.

If you, like mine, mine 0.5 BTC a day, $1 a day versus $5 a day makes a difference.

If BTC STAYED at $2, fine, but when every day you sign on its continuing to depreciate (in other words, runaway inflation, which is what it was touted as preventing) aside from mining or trading or ponzi schemes or buying or losing, it becomes a question of "I can buy a loaf of bread for 1 BTC today, and next week, I need 2 BTC to buy that same loaf of bread".

I know everybody here doesn't like to hear it, but when it takes the same amount of effort to acquire BTC, but they become worth less and less, that is called inflation.

It's not about the price being $2 or $200 a bitcoin, it's about it being STABLE, which it isn't.

You're an idiot

 1GH/s today will not find btc at the same rate as it will after the next retarget, nor does it find btc at the same rate as it did before the last retarget.  But you should definitely leave the competition for creating btc - you'll make it easier for me to find btc.

I think one answer to title of this thread is 0.

Mining Bitcoins is virtually the same as mining gold. With the current rise in gold prices, it has become profitable to dig deeper in the earth to extract gold that was not profitable a few years back. Mining gold is REALLY EXPENSIVE too.

Bitcoin can be considered a commodity. If the BTC price rises, miners will be willing to invest higher on mining hardware and electricity. Exactly in the same way as gold. This is one of the reasons why the design of the Bitcoin protocol is so powerful.

Except when you mine gold you do not validate any transactions.  Generating a block for bitcoin validates and secures transactions into that block.

Yeah I guess you people are just in denial and dont understand the difference between 2 bitcoins at 2bux vs 2 bitcoins at 20 bux lol.  WTF,  Its pretty simple.  IT COST MONEY, ELECTRICITY and TIME TO CREATE A BITCOIN.  If it costs more to make bitcoins then there worth then it makes no  damn sense to make them, if you dont make them then there will be no more bitcoins being made.  The gallon of milk was a perfect example or gas.  On top of that at 2 bux a bitcoin, and then going down to a dollar a bitcoin, down to 50 cent a bitcoin, your just having issues and going no where no stability no businesses will take the risk of accepting bitcoins, so bad for bitcoins, if they were 10 dollars a bitcoin and stable at 10 dollars a bitcoin, it would make sense to create bitcoins, it wouldnt cost more to make a bitcoin then its worth, and businesses, real businesses would be willing to accept bitcoins for payment.  Until those two things happen, bitcoin is dead except to play with period.

Yes I absolutely agree with that, after the fact, but the problem is there is no stability, so if your not mining bitcoins then your paying cash for bitcoins, so if you bought the bitcoins at 5 bux a bitcoin, then there worth 2 dollars a bitcoin, you cant buy the same product for 2 bitcoins.  Mining, not for profit, but just to be able to mine a bitcoin to buy something worth a bitcoin, if it cost 2 bux to make 1 bitcoin and 1 bitcoin is worth 50 cent, then were going to have major issues, which is where were at.  Then if you want to buy a product for those 2 bitcoins today that you just paid 2 bux for, and you buy it tomorrow when bitcoins are worth only 1.50 each then again we have a major problem.  This is where we stand and at such a low low low price it makes a major problem for miners, businesses and bitcoin itself.

ONCE AGAIN AND A LITTLE SLOWER .... (sorry no pictures)

mining $2 per BTC @ 1M difficulty is the same as mining $20 per BTC @ 10M difficulty.

You have a point on VOLATILITY but that isn't the same as saying BTC is dead @ $2.00 or $x.00.   The best thing ever for BTC in the short term would be for it to hit $2.00 and VOLATILITY collapse.  That would massively increase adoption.   BTC @ $2.00 w/ 1% daily volatilty is better for everyone except specualtors.  BTC @ $20.00 w/ 30% daily volatility only benefits speculators.  Yes you can mine and profit less @ $20 BTC than @ $2.00 BTC.

1 dollar per btc... then it's all for grabs by greedy stock traders like the "short selling" geekwads from bitcoinica & nerdy "buy silve & gold" trolls.

a reduction in price to help spread the supply of bitcoins to an increasing number of people is a good thing

Did you ever go to school stupid? Did you come out the same way?

[/quote]

It's the new math:

http://mathtricks.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/1-2-proof.jpg

[/quote]

Here is a real math leasson.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLprXHbn19I

I'm too sleepy right now, but i think in at least one of the steps you are supposed to take in that sequence there you're dividing by 0...i'm not sure what to make of this...i need sleep...

edit: alright, i forgot, dividing by zero is the Godwin's of math, if that comes up it's over, now i'm on a horse.

^^^ this.

You say again like that's what you said the first time...

Slowly for you:

Mining $2 per BTC @ 1.7M difficulty is like scouring the roadside for aluminum cans to return, except imagine every day the cans are worth a little less.

INFLATION

Well if you are able to produce autonomous robots which could do this task you could make quite a fortune. And the city might even pay you with a litter removal contract  ;D

Thanks to continuing drops in difficulty, it's like finding cans that are worth less, but finding more and more of them every day.

Difficulty hasn't been 1.7M for some time now. 
Also when difficulty was 1.7M price wasn't $2 so I am not sure what you are trying to say.
Then again I don't think you are sure what you are trying to say.

Also none of this has anything to do with your claim that mining @ $2 is impossible.  If difficulty fell back to 200K would it still be impossible?  If BTC was $20 USD but difficulty was 40 million how profitable would you be.

Simply claiming $20 BTC is better than $2 BTC is meaningless.  Higher BTC is better for speculators.  It has nothing to do w/ economics of mining.

It would be safe to say Bitcoin is officially dead when you can't get a pizza (or two) for 10.000 BTC...

It was already like that for months (a year?) once. Maybe it was dead and rose from the grave? If it can do that then death is not so scary, eh?

Or that Bitcoin is as good as Jesus. And yes, I do recognize that there is a lot of deep irony in that statement.

It will only die when there is little to no incentive to mine. Just imagine the price when there is only hobbyists mining Bitcoins. That's what the bottom will be.

So around $2.57? LOL

I never said impossible, I said that mining 0.5 BTC/day at $2/BTC is not worth my time.  Vastly different :)

And I also said whether its $20/BTC or $2/BTC doesnt matter as long as the price is STABLE.  Stable is bad for speculators.

Inflation is VERY BAD for BTC.

Bitcoin is dead when the flow of new fiat to the exchanges stops. That is easy for the exchanges to measure but hard for most people. It doesn't seem to be a published quantity.

Sure you can claim that it's not dead even then. Surely, people could be trading goods for bitcoins among themselves in the absence of fiat/exchanges. Dismantling of exchanges does not directly cause (or logically imply) a lack of desire to trade.

However, since the OP specified BTC Price, it is foolhardy to dismiss the correlation. Fiat exchanges were created in anticipation of supporting those who wanted to trade without mining bitcoin. Without desire from those folks, BTC price has no meaning. Exchanges become merely pari-mutuel wagering facilities taking a rake until there are no more rakes left to take.

What makes you think BTC has an inflation problem?

Please don't tell me you think the decline from $30 to $2 USD was because of inflationary pressures?

You're a smart man.

By then, decentralized exchanges will exist and bitcoin pricing will not be easily manipulated by HST. Prices will rise as demand increases, not just speculation. Then there will be no stopping bitcoin.

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.[1] When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a loss of real value in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy.[2][3] A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index (normally the Consumer Price Index) over time.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

Only in the sense that each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services, and has an erosion in it's purchasing power.

So, not in the sense that BTC people like to here, only in the "scientific definition" sense.

You left this out "Economists generally agree that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by an excessive growth of the money supply."
Bitcoin will never suffer excessive growth in the money supply. Hence, no inflation.

Yeah I dont understand how you miss the point of we need bitcoin to be stable and around 10 bux a bitcoin for it to work.  Its not for speculators, its for mining.  It costs more in electricity, a computer rig with at least one good graphics card to mine one bitcoin then what one bitcoin is worth, that is a major problem.  Also the price isnt stable, so no businesses will want to risk accepting bitcoins when they could sell a shirt that cost them 10 dollars to make for 5 bitcoins at 2 dollars per bitcoin but then next week there same bitcoins they took for that shirt are only worth a dollar a bitcoin, they just lost 50 percent on there shirt sale.  Nothing will ever come of this great bitcoin, cryptography system if these two things do not change.  There needs to be a stable wall, between 10 to 15 dollars per bitcoin to let businesses work within the confines of the bitcoin structure and not take losses.  It also needs to be around 10 bux for miners to create bitcoins and keep creating them or else it will take 3 years at 2 dollars a bitcoin just to pay off there mining computer, would make no sense.  So until these things happen it will remain a toy for nerds that enjoy the concept of bitcoins, which I do love the concept and love bitcoins, they just wont work in real life.  I am using 10 to 15 dollars knowing how much it cost to make a bitcoin at this point in time with what graphics card and build you would have to buy and how much it equates too.  Now later on, or if you were an early adopter, that price point might be 3 to 6 dollars a bitcoin, but either way there needs to be a stable wall that makes sense for speculators, miners, and businesses. This is what were missing and doesnt exist right now that is causing bitcoin to just be a fad.

Every time you mention Jesus, some little girl gets sent to reform camp till she turns 18 because she was trying to save your furry ass.  ;)

Bitcoin: Live Long and Prosper

I mined plenty too, what does that have to do with anything. The difficulty changing doesnt change enough by dropping to make it so much easier to create a bitcoin and cheaper to create a bitcoin then 2 dollars that 1 bitcoin is worth at this point does it?  No one will mine if it doesnt make financial sense and you lose money, no business will accept it if there bitcoins are worth half as much tomorrow as they were today, keeping it as a fad that will pass on, or if u dont want to say fad and make it sound cooler its an experimental micro economy that its advocates would like to see increase in size.  That just keeps it a nerdy, cool, fun little thing to play with.  The point of bitcoin would be to have it function better then a dollar does.  A dollar is stable, still a dollar today, still a dollar tomorrow, prices of products change, but not the dollar.  Bitcoins change in value and the products change in price, you cant have both, and the cost of making bitcoins is very high right now.  U need stability, u need a good price point or were just buying useless small items on forums, trading them for some reason, when really you could buy it for a dollar. Unless you need to buy drugs with it.

Hahahahahaha

This discussion is getting really fun ! Wait, let me grab some beer.

Your half right.  Bitcoin needs to be stable but it sure as hell doesn't need to be $10 to $15 for miners to break even.

Maybe YOU can't produce bitcoins unless price is $10 to $15 but that is irrelevant.

" It costs more in electricity, a computer rig with at least one good graphics card to mine one bitcoin then what one bitcoin is worth, that is a major problem."

My electrical costs @ current difficulty are $1.59 per BTC.  Difficulty will adjust to any pricepoint. BTC could be $20,000 and you still might not be profitable miner.   The more stable prices are the less likely you will be able to mine profitably unless you have an effficient rig AND low/no energy prices. 

Why?  The more stable the price the less risk a miner is taking and bitcoin minting is a commodity industry.  Economic theory tells us with no barriers to entry and commodity product prices will fall to barely above the cost of the most efficient producers.  A miner with good efficient rig and below average energy prices (compared to bitcoin community) will eke out a small profit (maybe less than 5% of energy cost & ammortized hardware).  Those with hgiher energy prices or less efficient rigs will simply be unable to compete.

Think very high difficulty. Think Google and Walmart setting up datacenters for bitcoin mining with onsite power generation. Think oilsand plants in northern Alberta using their cogeneration plants for bitcoin mining (using ASICs of course (more efficient than FPGAs)). Think thousands of transactions an hour, pushing home Internet connections off the network (must pay $300/month or more for business Internet).

Not that I completely understand the difficulty calculation, but those companies would have the resources to push the difficulty up a million-fold. That makes your miner a million times less profitable, while still costing the same amount of money to run.

but the only reason they would do that would be if bitcoins were worth a lot more than they are now.

bringing your profitability back up again.

I dont know what rig you would have, but you need at least 700 bux for a computer and card that will mine bitcoins well.  At 2 dollars a bitcoin, minus your electricity, it will take you a long long long time to just break even and pay for the rig.  That is why I see it at 10 to 15 bux a bitcoin being a good price, and a wall between 10 to 15 for stability for businesses to take the risk in selling items we need for bitcoins.  As it is now, I agree the stability is the biggest issue.  I do not think 10 dollars a bitcoin is too high for a normal rig to create bitcoins and make sense.  Takes about 3 days to make one bitcoin, thats about 20 bux a month generating bitcoins with a 700 dollar rig, minus the cost of electricity, so do the math holy hell over 3 years to pay for your mining rig easliy.  That just doesnt make sense.  This is where I see it needing to be around 10 bux to 15 a coin and a stable wall built as a guarantee for businesses to take the risk of selling items for bitcoins.  No real business is going to sell anything that matters for over 10 bux, that might be bought for 5 bitcoins, when 2 weeks later those 5 bitcoins would be worth 5 bux, too risky especially when you start selling items like ipods, ipads, computers, graphics cards etc, things that cost 100s of dollars, way too high of a risk unless you convert your bitcoins into cash immediately, which if your doing that then whast the point, just sell them for cash to start with

the point is not everyone has a credit card, or even if they do have one, not everyone wants it connected to their purchases.

there have been so many times lately where i've been to a site and really wished they accepted bitcoins, because for me, they're 100x more convenient.

example: http://rapidxhtml.com looks like a great service, but completely useless to me because they only accept paypal.

I am sure a year ago, when btc were less then 1 dollar, it was profitable to mine.  at 2 more and more will drop of the network, diff will go down, and it will become profitable again.  satoshi was a smart man.

Do you know a graph of mining profitability? Should be doable:
We know the difficulty over time.
We know the exchange rate of bitcoin over time.
We should be able to get the hashing efficiency over time for the most common miners.
We know since when there is merged mining.
We know the exchange rate of namecoin over time.
People can set in their rate for wattage.

I would offer a bounty of 3BTC for a link to a page that respects all these for a nice trend line.

Your talking about that one website, and nothing really wrong with paypal, or money order, or sending in a check.  If you dont want something connected to you then your either paranoid or its illegal, really no worries connecting yourself to 99 percent of businesses out there to buy anything online.  Yeah graph would be cool and I have seen something similar, but its really not the difficulty, its just at 2 bux a bitcoin, you have no choice but to spend about 600  to 700 bux for a decent mining rig, its going to take a long damn time at 2 bux a bitcoin just to break even on just your rig, then you have the difficulty and electricity that gets into play more after you finally break even in years lol.

I see no boundaries except child porn and torture/murder for bitcoins being wrong, everything else is fair game. And if you think people are paranoid look at what they are doing to the wikileaks founder, trying to pin anything he's ever done with fake charges just to get him, only reason he's not in jail for 30 years is because he was super smart and a ex hacker who knew how and when to hide his tracks.

you can call it paranoia if you like.

i call it not handing out personal information unnecessarily, if there's an alternative.

Either he is paranoid, or you are naive.
There are people who like their privacy and don't want whole world to know about everything they do.

Also, I have a famous quote for you:

Come on man lets be real though.  I am a very very very active buyer, seller online and so are most of my friends.  Who cares if someone knows you bought a book at amazon, or a hard drive at newegg.  There not getting any more information then I can find on you by your IP address, and doing some research, or glancing at your mail and getting your name, any trash you throw away, bills, letters etc.  Credit cards are safe, protected with chargebacks, and fraud, paypal same thing, and theres not much they can do with the little information they get when you buy something.  And if your that worried pay with a damn money order from a post office under a fake name.  Bitcoins are only semi easy inside the USA.  The value is extremely sketchy, not much upside with bitcoins at this point.  Yes I understand you might want to keep yourself private with porn, drugs etc but come on, I have been buying and selling shit online for over 10 years now, not much risk at this point.

The state cares.
Using anylysis of what books you buy, they can analyse your psychological profile, how you behave, where you go every weekend, or if you are a disident/oppositionist.

Actually, I CAN DO IT EASILY if I have enough statistical data (I am a programmer). If I can do it means not only they can do it, but they are already doing it.

After they determine you are a "threat", they either make you a non-rejectable offer, or they simply come at night and you are never heard from again.

I live in a post-communist country, so i know how this works. At first, they eleminate the handful that oppose the strongest. Then the next, weaker opposition, and then level lower and so on. Before you know it, there is nobody that opposes them (the only left are opportunist carcass and cowards) - and boom, there ya go - totalitarian state.

Do you think that totalitarian regimes are made in one day ? No, it is a slow process, exactly as the one that is happening now.

Yeah there is a push for that, but as you said the process is slow and from the current outlook it could take a few more decades. I estimate that open source philosophy will have completely emerged itself withing society in the next two decades, possibly even faster. By then it will be too late for any corporatist entity to make any demands.

But I'm a optimistic guy when it comes to the preservation of freedom maybe I'm wrong...  :-\

I hope you are right, however I am a pessimist or a realist. I hope it is the former, but i fear it is the latter.

Good lord what are we living in the days of the NAZIS.  THis is america people, not hard to find info on anyone, no ones using what you buy on newegg and amazon against you lol, Reading too many books and watching too many movies or something lol.  Ok, I understand it can happen, but christ we have grown as a country, if you live in the USA, theres a pretty damn good chance, like 99 percent, that its not going to effect your freedom or what happens to you in your lifetime.  We only live for about 60 to 70 years, something major would have to change for that to matter and at that point, bitcoin wouldnt matter or even be discussed, we would be facing much more important problems then buying something online lol.

^^^ Because Bitcoin is only By America, For Americans... right?

Likely some Germans said the very same thing circa 1930.  Is there something that makes Americans genetically superior to other nationalities?  That what has happened in other countries in the past 3 centuries is impossible in the United States.  If you think so then you are naive.

Your shortsightedness of thinking only for your generation is small.   What about your children's generation or their children.  Privacy is a human right.  It doesn't matter if the govt will use what I buy at newegg against me or not.  They simply have no right to that information.  Tools like Bitcoin put the power back with the people. 

Lastly as others have pointed out Bitcoin isn't just for America.  Try to limit the Amerocentrism just a little bit.  Bitcoin may be the most useful in emerging nations (which tend to have volatile currencies, and periods of rampant inflation) and totalitarian regimes (where privacy has a higher value and utility).

funny, it doesn't look like america.

i looked out the window today and it looked a lot like brisbane, australia.

Not america here either.  I wonder if people would like to remember Mcarthyism - it's still alive and well in the USA, and now has several high powered bits of legislation enshrining it (Patriot Act and the lovely department of homeland security).  If you haven't seen your local gestapo doing data matching on everything, then obviously you've never been on a plane.

Clearly that is a problem with your window. Have you considered taking it in for service?

Just to double check, PatrickHarnett and I looked out our windows. It seems highly unlikely that is brisbane, australia. There should be a river.

haha yeah and i should live in a big mansion next to said river, instead of in the poorer burbs.

Hi, i live in EUROPE

This is NOT america

Bye

The window isn't broken, maybe it just needs cleaning. 

Normally Australia isn't outside - haven't been there since August - but it was to Brisbane, and I didn't see the river.

To compress so much fail into such a short piece of text is simply artful.

Economists aren't generally agreeing about bitcoin.  Inflation is the loss of purchasing power per unit, period.  I know you are probably one of those "don't confuse me with the facts" people but 2 BTC bought a lot more two months ago, regardless of exchanging it for fiat.  That is called inflation.

This made me LOL  ;D

LOL +1 - I work in an "economics shop" although I am not an economist, and the practical evidence is economists don't agree on almost everything.  There are some areas where there is aggregation of opinions.

You can't measure inflation over a period as short as 2 months and with a single metric.  What you experienced was volatility.

Inflation is a persistent and general rise in price of goods and services.  You can not conclusively point to inflation for a change in exchange rate of BTC in a 2 month window.  Compared to 12 months prior the purchasing power of BTC is much higher today.   So are we experiencing deflation? 

You can't fix stupid I guess.

OK NON COMMUNIST COUNTRIES, is that better?  We havent had issues in non communist areas in lifetimes and lifetimes.  There is nothing that has shown it would change to any extent at any rate that bitcoin would be the answer to the problems of your privacy.  We already know that bitcoins are not private.  They can be tracked and traced.  No more private then if you take some time and make purchases with a prepaid credit card.  Your looking way too deep into this and yes being way to paranoid.  Ok in other underprivileged countries where privacy might be more important, maybe bitcoin might offer something, but theres not too many places that you cant get a prepaid credit card for cash that would keep your privacy and order whatever you want. Even if you buy something with bitcoin you have to get it shipped somewhere, your apartment, house, or lets say you use a receiving company, that has your information from your license and info unless your faking that or using some shady place that doesnt require identification. Theres not any major items that you can buy with bitcoin either, if bitcoin is going to make it, it would have to be utilitzed by companies like newegg or amazon etc, so wouldnt much matter at that point, your going to be tracked by who you buy it from, and a prepaid card leads to no where.  Bitcoin can lead to your computer, or information from where your storing the bitcoins, or what service your using to buy the products, no more private then other options that already exist unless your in some communist country.

And ok, anything is possible, but yes I wasnt referring to just my lifetime, were talking 100s of years and some crazy changes that would force people to buy products in secret.  I just dont see it.  Not to mention were sitting around 2 bux a coin. 

If you were living in a free country, you would be raised to know these basic things, like what "communism" means. :) Just joking...


So which is it? We don't need privacy or Bitcoin doesn't provide it? You are arguing for both I suppose.

First, if you know you don't need privacy, then you aren't doing anything interesting with your life. Sorry.

Second, you need to do some research and imagination about what kind of privacy you can get with Bitcoin.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Inflation IS printing money. Printing money IS inflation. If you don't print money, the average price of everything will not rise in the long term (because when money supply is fixed, and number of goods is increasing, light deflation is a natural thing) , unless there are some special circumstances.

This is why gold is ALWAYS rising in the long term - because the supply is rising very slowly, while number of goods which you can buy for it rises much faster (as we are producing more and more faster and faster).

Your wrong.  Inflaiton is a a persistent and general rise in prices.  Period. 
Printing money is inflationary (as in potential to cause inflaiton).

It certainly is possible to have inflation without printing money (increasing money supply).
It is also possible to have no inflation or even deflation despite printing money (increasing money supply).

Inflation is the result of a monetary base growing FASTER than underlying economy.
Deflation is the result of the monetary base growing SLOWER than the underlying economy.

If the underlying productive output grows 5% but the effective money supply grows 10% then per unit of production there is 4.76% more dollars per available goods/services and that is INFLATIONARY.

If on the otherhand the productive output grows 10% but the effective money supply grows 5% then per unit of production there is 4.54% less dollars per available goods/services and that is DEFLATIONARY.

Of course none of this changes the fact that you can't measure inflation by looking at a single price and a two month time period.  Speculaiton can drive prices up or down and have nothing to do with inflation.  Supply & Demand can drive individual prices up or down and have nothing to do with inflation.

This is exactly what I said, using different words.

I also said that in certain special circumstances (as when economy is shrinking while money supply is stable), there a natural inflation can occur.

But AFAIK from history, i don't remember it ever happening in the last 100-200 years, and this is why i called it "special circumstances".

DeathAndTaxes - it is you who is wrong =)  Inflation, properly defined, means an increase in the money supply. Deflation means a decrease in the money supply. Printing money is not "inflationary"... it is "inflation."

The fact that Paul Krugman et al have destroyed the proper meaning of the term, and convinced the world that prices rise on their own, and that printing money only has a "chance" of increasing inflation is an atrocious myth.

When a dollar is printed, inflation increased by a dollar. Prices may rise or fall based on many variables, and prices can even fall during an inflationary environment, but always when money is printed inflation has been caused.

This is why it's funny/sad on the news shows when they say something like, "well, the Fed has created $500b, but will that lead to inflation?"  And then they argue about it. The creation of $500b WAS THE INFLATION. They are confusing CPI with inflation. In the US, inflation has already occured... and the CPI will likely show the effects of this inflation in the coming years.

Why the hell does it matter what the definition of inflation is? Just so that one person can pidgeonhole Bitcoin into it and say they are right? I don't think Bitcoin cares whether it's inflating or just dropping in value.

Properly defined by who?  Show me an economics textbook or paper by respected economist (your choice) who agrees with you.  I don't care about the politics of inflation vs inflationary.

OK, we'll put it this way then...

Bitcoin is hereby decreed to be stable and/or deflationary, meaning it is increasing in value.  Goods and services are simply becoming 10 times more expensive relative to bitcoin, and all other forms of money are becoming 9.98 times more valuable at the same time.

Your Bitcoin world is safe, fiat currency is still inflating at 2%, and you can go back to sleep :)

Nobody claimed that other than you.
So you are two for two when it comes to false statements.

I know the privacy you get with bitcoin and its just as much as a prepaid credit card that you put cash on.  Using bitcoin you will still have a trail, smaller then normal methods but still a trail.  Yes I am pointing out both, that bitcoin doesnt provide more privacy then other available methods and that you do not need that level of privacy, almost anyone can be found or information found on anyone by the time you were 16 or so if born in the 70s or 80s.  Buying things online is what were talking about here, so no I dont think you need to hide the fact your buying a laptop, or a camera, or a inflatable women whatever.  And if you do, bitcoin has a very hard time paying for those items anyways, and the privacy you could get can also be had with out bitcoin.  And why would not needing privacy mean your not doing anything interesting with your life, thats just stupid.  I can do many many things and not worry about if the government or big eye in the sky know about it, and the more interesting things I have done, I know the government either doesnt care or wouldnt know about them and it wasnt by using bitcoin.

I love bitcoin for sure.  Its just not privacy thats going to save bitcoin at this point.

Most people do not need that level of privacy most of the time.  Many people would like more privacy for a lot of silly things (like the inflatable woman).  There are also a lot of illegal activities for which it makes sense to seek privacy.

To most people I would suggest that the only attraction of Bitcoin is the potetntially lower transaction fees.  When you consider only those that already use Bitcoin I expect you'll find a larger proportion which highly value freedom and/or privacy.  If all of the things you want to do are either legal or carry a low probability of a mild penalty then you are lucky indeed, particularly if, by some miracle, you were born into the country with these ideal laws!

You are beating a dead horse.

Privacy, low fees even decentralization and freedom from intervention are just arguments to people. They are not reasons.
A reason for some people is that you can buy drugs without leaving the house, for others because it is less hassle than plain old forex and as fun.
There can be many more reasons to use it but guess what? Silk Road and MtGox emerged both independently from the Project.

It is up to you, the supporters *if you call yourself one

Yeah I came into bitcoin early, around 1 dollar a coin, in the beginning way before the spike to 30 bux and it was because I thought it was a cool, unique concept that could take off.  After being around and seeing the instability and scamming and how complex it is to use, and mine, with me being very computer literate, I lost some faith that normal people would pick it up enough to make it work. I hope it does turn around, its still as cool as it was a year ago.  I will support it.