Bitcoin Forum

http://www.robertson.ms/Throwing%20in%20the%20Towel.bmp



What do you think?

what do you mean? are you giving up on bitcoin?

Agreed.

This is what I expect to happen. I am base this on my past experiences.

We broke the $5.00 barrier, the next psychological level will be in the $4's.

It will linger in the High 4's, maybe even reach up into the 5's again, then we will slowly push to mid 4's, low 4's and then into the 3's. This could all happen very fast. Remember it spiked up from $2 fast, it will go down just as fast.

I think $2 bitcoins will surely be in our future.

Just a matter of time before the people pushing the price down get ready for another sell attack.

One thing I have learned from bitcoins and I have been saying this for a while now is no matter how much you think bitcoins reached bottom and will not go lower, it has always gone lower and will go lower.

Probably the grand strategy of rinse and repeat, and using bid walls. Many suckers out there to rob their money thinking that bitcoins price is going to the moon. Just think of all the optimism when we spiked up from $2.00, many of those people are probably still long. Their loss will be the manipulators gain.

I wonder how many people are prematurely (or early) liquidating their long positions from lower prices. The interest charges on the longs in the unrealized swap groups do not count unless you liquidate after the 16th. In other words you are not actually being charged interest if you wait a couple more days and don't get caught up in the panic.

The international banking and media mafia controls all.

Bitcoin is no longer a secret and they are quickly cutting off.

They are also closing in on all "piracy" sites.

Freedom on the Internet is soon to be a story to tell the kids.

Freedom in real life is soon to be a story to tell the kids.


OWNED.


I don't see bitcoin bouncing back from the lastest string of bad news. (Tradehill, bitscalper, paxum)

All we got left is Mt.Gox.

The actual amount of bitcoin trading is a small percentage, yet it changes the market cap by tens of millions of dollars. I pay little attention to mtgox prices except to buy MOAR BITCOIN.

There's always the people that are willing to go down with the ship.

Even if mtgox price goes to $1 there will still be a massive Bitcoin Network and development. Trading will fluctuate at this low level until a billion dollar niche market is filled by some bitcoin entrepreneur. I wish I was a Genius Boy so I could write software that integrates bitcoin for nano transactions.

i agree with this, but as long as we have TOR and Newsgroups, they can't control everything.  Hackers will always come up with new techniques.  Bitcoin really needs to have quite a few more reliable and honest exchanges and retailers accepting the currency for it to have a fighting chance.

Who are "they" ?


?


1. Tradehill is seeking MSB partners in the US. They have to comply with US law.
2. Bitscalper: Even bringing Bitscalper up as some sort of counterpart to Tradehill or Paxum is laughable. It's been a ponzi from day 1. Everyone here who's got two braincells to rub together *knows this*.
3. Paxum is heavily linked in to the CC industry. They are a visa/mastercard shop.

So, what is your point? I'm lost.

Mt Gox is a centralized bitcoin exchange that also happens to own the Bitcoin Forum.
Way too much control, the anti-thesis of what Bitcoins are suppose to be about.

This is why we need a peer-to-peer crypto-currency exchange:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62879.0

http://www.youtube.com/embed/fOaCemmsnNk



meh... just click the link

The manipulation has been here and evident to all since at least last summer.  

Check the poll I made a few weeks ago (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61151.0), there are many people on this forum who say they are playing bitcoin speculation with $1k or more. Look at at the stats from the poll, account for the noise inherent to forum polls, and figure a way to guess how many people are trading on gox with how much. Then realize that how much confidence you place in this method is almost completely subjective.

The wall at 5.60 didn't get taken down, it was removed and the price followed. This has been status qou, if you don't realize there is a hierarchy of "manipulators" with 1k, 10k, 100k, 1M by now you haven't been around very long or haven't been paying attention.

If all the centralized exchanges get taken down it won't be a big deal in the long run unless people get locked out of their money*. Everyone should realize the exchanges are the weak point. What I want to know is the Mt Gox/Bitcoinica contingency plans for this scenario. That is the biggest unknown right now, and perhaps they shouldn't publish it. I bet the people with alot of money in there already have something set up.

*Please correct me on this if someone has fundamental doubts regarding a decentralized exchange.

You have to think some big techie firm or corporate behemoth is looking in on us, and thinking of buying into crypto-currency
while its still cheap.  That's the smart play.

Mostly all true... sadly...

How many coins are "on the market" being bought and sold?
This relatively small amount is not the true price of bitcoin
There are 8M+ more coins out there and plenty of development going
on .

I have never sold even 1 bitcoin.
I have used some coins.

speculators....

For those of you that haven't seen his last episode after being fired for telling the truth, here it is:


http://youtu.be/q3wATmc93Lc

better luck next time  ;D

Interesting to see how this sub forum most of the time over reacts to events. :) Be it positive or negative.

Tradehill stopped trading, there's others that will fill their place.

Nothing fundamental changed.

Take it easy folks, no reason to panic. :)

This reminds me of "The Network"

Tradehill?

We got:
CryptoXchange, Intersango, Mtgox etc etc.

 

+1

For an European Tradehill was a bad option anyway. Happily we have good options these days such as Intersango and Cryptoxchange. Mt. Gox is good for deposits. Tradehill sucked both ways.

Your ignorance is amazing to me.  There are plenty of markets besides MtGox. Try google.

As far as I can see, on the grand scale, bitcoins always bottom out *higher* than the previous drop(https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62685.msg732277#msg732277):


http://imageupper.com/s02/1/2/A13284510731076063_1.jpg

Nice to see not everyone on this forum is an idiot. Cheers !

The Illuminati are upon us. Fly you fools. Aaaaaaaahhhhhh.

Man, get a grip!

If you haven't taken the poll, please do.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63763.msg747045#msg747045 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63763.msg747045#msg747045)

Haha, some of the replies in here are hilarious

Not surprised.

You are like the Patriot fans GeniusX.

Bandwagon to the core...

Bitcoins sent last 24h    1,037,702.77 BTC
Bitcoins sent avg. per hour    43,237.62 BTC

Some activity, but not a panic.

I don't panic or thrill. I buy und sell. Me do trading.

Gambling. Trading in a negative sum game is called Gambling.

I'm soooo bandwagon, that I have the opposite opinion of the bandwagon.

Didn't you just come back like a month ago?

yes

And why do you call it a negative sum game?

Its a zero sum game minus fees.

Sorry you can't go. I forbid it.

...bitstamp, okpay

the quantity of trolling and FUD spreading is reaching new heights lately. I think i will disconnect for a while and keep trading coins with real people around me, that at least i'm able too see...


















Haha  ;D NEVER

Seriously?
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1623965113757&id=63ae8084cfb2ecfef7ef343b7182c7ce


Do you really consider those sites meaningful? I have jackoff sessions more important.


If mtgox fails, bitcoin fails.

Why should they? Just the recent panic should have earned them $10K. They have weathered similar setbacks with SEPA in the past.

Let's pretend for a second Mtgox closes.


Nobody has the resources to make a hacker proof site as hacker proof as Mtgox.

Bitcoin sites will be plagued by password database leaks, stolen accounts, and stolen wallets.



Building an impenetrable bank on a ship with cracks in the hull. Smart idea?

http://a0.img.mobypicture.com/10a7cee3f43e732695c3718e99ca7e27_square.jpg

Mod Note: Don't hotlink NSFW images

Frame of reference d00d.


No one "willing to invest into Bitcoin"

I think you are a very narrow minded opportunist. If anything, this whole issue proves how much we need Bitcoin.

Down down down! Looking forward to that massive drop in mining difficulty :) :)

It may take awhile.

after seeing that the price droped down to nearly 4 today, i knew i would have been zhoutonged. i also felt like throwing in the towel. and i must say i am also a little disappointed. technical analysis - OK and stuff, but where were the ppl and theire walls? everything fake! everything smoke and bubble!

- 43% in 4 days, this would kill every normal stock. and it certainly is no good thing for bitcoin.

so if you followed the swarm, sold everything in a panic and dropped the price with shorts excuse my emotions: fuck you!
if you are one of those, putting bid walls as high as 20.000 btc and then decide to pull them down and change sides: fuck you very much!

this probably will drive/scare away many people who searched to invest in bitcoin, like i was scared away for about 2 months by the fatal droping price until about $4.

nobody buys into a chart which shows a clearly broken uptrend and panic selling of the sheeps and manipulation like mad. nobody who cares about his money. 

so finally you begun the shit, now end it. drop the price to 3$ or whatever, so miners are forced out of theire business and bitcoin has another crisis2.0 and beeing mentioned in the newspapers as "the hacker money is dead/dies".  surely that will drop the prices even lower and finally we can close the chapter. paypal/westerunion/paxum won, and goldmann sachs can also dance on the grave. maybe they are next to invent the new crypto currency, beeing controlled by them and having the acceptance bitcoin never had.

i kind of throwed a mental towell. at first i applaud your guys, but -40% in 5 days.. that is too much for me - i can't include that in my risk management on bitcoinica. and who tells me that there is anything real at this price?! nobody.

conclusion: im telling everybody to get some bitcoins, while i won't get some now. in fact im giving bad advice if i call to buy bitcoin now. -40% .. why not -70% the next days?! im sure there are folks out there like me who get zhoutonged when price hits 4$.

If only someone could come up with some kind of decentralized way to store value to rid of us of all these single points of failure.

Oh, that's right. You don't really care about what Bitcoin actually is. It's all a big lottery ticket to you.

bitcoin is the store of value - getting constantly fucked up. prices under 5$ are medium sized catastrophe for bitcoin. but thats the way you, the people of the market, wanted it to be. maybe its my fault also, cause i played with zhoutong to much. after all that leveraged trading has some nasty effects on price.

anyway: bad bad last 4 days for bitcoin. i hope the damage done is not to severe :(

i DO something besides speculating. i hoard, i buy stuff, i buy stocks on glbse, i spread bitcoin-propaganda wherever i come to, i even trade some goods to friends for bitcoin.

my frustration is only partly cause i lost that 27 coins or how much they were, its mostly because of lost confidence in the bitcoin future. how shall bitcoin reach a broader public and increase in usabillity, when still prices drop that brutal?! .. if you come across this forum, you get a pretty zynical and pessimist view on bitcoins future - and price drops reflect that. its the speed in which it happens. 40% loss in such a short time is simply to much, compared to the mining costs of one bitcoin beeing estimated at about 3$.  again: bad bad signals for bitcoins future.

maybe you should take a break gewure, seriously, a few months for example. You are free to ignore my advice but i know for sure not all of us can stand pressure the same way

im not crying, don't worry :)

i just lowered my exspectations on bitcoin. my mid term strategy turned out to be invalid. the last 3 months i sticked to it, thinking the market finaly is stable between 4.5 and 6 something. turned out to be invalid. i gave it about a 80% probability of not droping below 4.5 all the time, till yesterday.

was 4.5 to optimistic?! - not really i think. i underestimated the bitcoin-speculator induced volatility.
the next days will show us further what the future of bitcoin will look like; if i think of it idealistic, that is the way i would like to see bitcoin in the future, i really really really hope it does not break bellow $3.

am i overemotional if i call 'bitcoins dead' into mind again if prices go bellow $3?! i don't know if such price movement can go on, without doing severe longterm damage to bitcoins reputation and the economy.

i will suspend my trading untill i have found my new mid term strategy, paraipan.

Nothing serious has happened from the perspective of Bitcoin's long term future. Absolutely nothing. I've never seen such overreaction that we have seen now, not even in the Bitcoin market. I agree that the worst damage from this is the price volatility itself but everyone involved with Bitcoin right now should know what to expect. I also tell everyone that I mention Bitcoin to, that they keep this in mind if they want to buy bitcoins.

I think the worst about this is people using Bitcoinica who should not be using Bitcoinica. Don't use it unless you know what you're doing and/or are prepared to take a total loss at any time without regret.

I can admit that I hold a fairly significant BTC position and it's worth less now, but I haven't sold anything nor am I planning to sell anything. Nothing has happened that would really worry me from a long term perspective. My position is not a leveraged position of course, it's a traditional one. I will never touch Bitcoinica.

+1

Gewure, no offense, but you do realise you are contributing to the bitcoin price going more up and down, when your leveraged long get liquided. Luckily people like me stopped the fall at 4.2 - 4.4. If everyone did like you, the price would be a lot lower now. ( And gone up a lot more before the fall).  I am impressed at how stable the bitcoin price has been lately thought compared to how unknown the price really is.

on my longterm strategy, to which i stick, a drop bellow $3 in this state of progress of bitcoin would be the first serious warning sign of the longterm strategy beeing invalid. so it changes something in my system, cause this possibility has just been enabled.

so i lower my longterm(4 years) goal from 23$ to 12$

prices may rise in future - sure. but abandon the skyrocket, 7.2 is mid-term(half year) goal for now, 23$ longterm goal.

nothing serious? Tradehill decided to shut down because of banking troubles. What is not to say Mtgox would suffer the safe fate? If Mtgox, went down that would pretty much cause bitcoin price to crash.

posted that before, sure my zhoutongisation had an effect on volatility :)

i call stable prices something different, but lol, ok.. -40% STABLE PRICES! rejoice! ;)

moar cheeep bitcoinzeees

also I have finally found the real satoshi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YkbgvRMpW0    :P

Tradehill shutting down and Mt. Gox shutting down are two very different scenarios. Neither event kills Bitcoin but the latter would cause a total crash in price and Bitcoin adoption would take a huge step back. However there is absolutely no reason to assume that Mt. Gox is having any trouble. It's important to remember that Tradehill was an US exchange, what is common between Mt. Gox, Intersango and Cryptoxchange? None of them operate in the US.

Mt. Gox has been handling its regulation related issues very nicely and has not had any trouble with its most important bank accounts and it has even had functioning SEPA deposits for a good while now. Intersango has functioning SEPA both ways and they have basically solved the issues related to their UK account and as far as I know Cryptoxchange is also running a very solid business.

Remember that Tradehill was only slightly bigger than Intersango and Cryptoxchange, the difference was not huge. Mt. Gox is on a totally different level. I see a promising future for Intersango and Cryptoxchange though, they are providing a great service especially for European Bitcoin users for which Tradehill was a MUCH crappier exchange overall.

Tradehill was clearly a declining exchange and nobody lost money in this process thanks to the admirable business practices of Tradehill. I can actually think of a good number of ways to look at this whole situation from a "glass half full" perspective.

1) We are seeing the emergence of solid, ethical business practices. The way Tradehill handled everything is admirable.

2) Even though the 2nd biggest exchange in the Bitcoin economy shut down, it didn't really change anything. We have come a long way and there are plenty of good alternatives to choose from.

3) Paxum ending their support for Bitcoin can be seen from a positive light as well, it seems like banks might be starting to think of Bitcoin as a threat. That means we might be making the transition from nothing to something. From usability perspective this doesn't change anything, Paxum isn't very relevant in the big picture. It's just one payment processor.

4) Combined these events, just like the MyBitcoin scam and the Mt. Gox hack back in the day (although these were MUCH more severe events), will add pressure to innovate. MyBitcoin's demise lead to more robust wallets which are both convenient and much safer. Mt. Gox hack lead to Mt. Gox taking their security seriously and other major exchanges have don so as well, with Tradehill and Intersango having clear security records.

With the announcement of p2pool and its huge success, the only part in the whole Bitcoin equation that is still too centralized is the exchanges. I think these recent issues will add further pressure to develop convenient p2p exchanges and convenient services of real life exchanging. I believe all of this will lead to good things eventually.

nevertheless the midterm and the longterm look much more like 10$ than like 40$ now.

Mid-term and long-term are very different animals. I agree that $10 is a sane target for the mid-term but from a long-term perspective that is a very low target. Remember where the price was one year from now and also remember that every downtrend has bottomed higher than the one before that.

I agree with you that if the price went below $3 it would be a very serious issue. The long-term picture would be disrupted. But if it doesn't, we could definitely make a new all-time high within the next 12 months and we could test $100 within 24 months. In 5 years, how about the moon ($1000+)?

I also believe that the price is based on fundamentals in the end. Technicals and the way published technical analysis manipulates people into buying and selling only accelerates what is already there. I honestly can't see anything there right now that could lead to below $3 prices. Those prices are not realistic unless people seriously lose faith in Bitcoin at the same time.

Only what I call a serious event could cause this and make even people like me doubt the long-term picture. This would undoubtedly cause a price drop to below $3. An event like this would need to be very serious though, the stuff that has happened recently are very insignificant.

If MtGox was to offer much a lower fees on much higher volume of transaction that could stimulate the creation of other exchanges.

Exchanges like Bitcoinica but with actual reserve and USD processing.

I'm sorry guys, but this is going down to $2-$3 again, just like the first time.


The only reason it skyrocketed (both times) was because of some stupid conference, some stupid tv show, and some stupid national news segment.

There's nothing to look forward to except the collapse of civilization.


When there's a collapse of civilization, you can't buy power with bitcoins to access your bitcoins.

There is nothing stupid about new people learning about bitcoin. Of course 95% of people who watched the TV shows are not crypto literate in the slightest.

http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/bitcoin

What give me more hope is Bartydt's upcoming TED talk.   I guess the average person attending TED have greater vision and deeper pocket than all of "The good wife" auditory combined.

Oh and BTW : It did not skyrocket, unless going from 5 to 7 is a rocket worthy move to you.

try $2 to $7.  ::) ::) ::)

Simple math:

In approximately 4 years, there'll be approximately 15,000,000 bitcoins generated. At $23 USD, there would only be a market cap of $345,000,000. For sake of argument, say that in 4 years there will only be 2,000,000 loyal users of Bitcoin. On average, they each will have only $172.50 between them.

Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but there should be a hell of lot more than 2M users within 4 years. If that is not the case, than somebody in the towel business is going to make a killing. Again, for sake of argument, I'll concede to there only be 2M Bitcoiners in 4 years. These Bitcoiners are not going to be spending on average $172.50 USD per year. Many will spend that in a week--or less. But I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say that that's what they'll spend in a month. Follow closely, for the math is going to get harder. There are 12 months in a year. With me so far? 12 X $172.50 = $2,070. $2,070 X 2M users = a market cap of $4,140,000,000. $4,140,000,000 USD/15,000,000 bitcoins = $276 per Bitcoin.

Therefore, $276 USD is the bear minimum Bitcoin must be trading at within 4 years, otherwise WE ARE ALL JUST WASTING OUR TIME HERE.

There is no way in hell that a market cap of $180,000,000 ($12 USD X 15,000,000 bitcoins) in four years is going to sustain the Bitcoin community.

~Bruno~

Um... no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

How does that even apply? I can go to nearly any country in the world without any money, just VISA. There are no rules anymore that apply to money, that's why the world economy is in the mess it is in. Bitcoin offers discipline and new rules, but we haven't figured out what they are yet. There are new economic relationships to be described with math that we haven't yet discovered. Bitcoin is still a big unknown.

I like this post. I'm giving it a +1.5.


I believe countries fear the discipline aspect of Bitcoin, but won't slow them down in trying to stop it, yet at the same time embrace it if they can figure out a way to profit from that position. I can envision them using it as an adjunct currency to fiat, thus perpetuating their doom currency as long as possible, reaping the awards as it fails, all the while setting in place a defense mechanism to manipulate Bitcoin with the hope of filling their next generation's coffers.

~Bruno~

If a bitcoin circulated once per week, we'd have a velocity of 52. And we'd be able to support an economy worth 52 times the total value of bitcoins (so if we have 50 million dollars worth of bitcoins - we could support an annual trade of 2.6 billion).

That said, I think a velocity of 3 to 10 is more realistic.

who is this guy?!

https://i.imgur.com/c6uhY.gif

Do you seriously believe any of that? 2M users spending hundreds of dollars worth of bitcoins in a month? within 4 years?

If these are your expectations, or else "you are wasting your time here"... I think you are in for a big disappointment.

What are your predictions for state of Bitcoin in 4 years ?

I'd say having half a million users doing business with Bitcoin on a daily basis would already be huge success. Like in, I'd be rich success. Not going to happen, but I expect it will steadily gain support in different markets and I will try to do my bit.

I don't think Bruno's expectation is at all unrealistic, in fact I'd say anything less is very pessimistic. Asking for 100 million users in 4 years is insane, even 10 million is pushing it, but 2 million? You have to be kidding me. Let's go through the numbers again shall we.

Bitcoin has around 100 000 users these days. In February 2011 we probably had only 10% of that, maybe 10 000 users. Which means there has been a 900% percentage increase in users in just 1 year. These numbers are thrown out there, they could be off but not way off.

Next we have to take into account the fact that Bitcoin is not going to grow at a yearly 900% forever. Let's say the growth rate halves every year, which is very conservative. So for the next 12 months we can expect a 450% growth rate, next 12 after that will be 225% and so on. What we come up with is this:

February 2011: 10k users (start of calculation)
February 2012: 100k users (900% increase from 2011)
February 2013: 550k users (450% increase from 2012)
February 2014: 1,79m users (225% increase from 2013)
February 2015: 3,8m users (112,5% increase from 2014)
February 2016: 5,94m users (56,25% increase from 2015) <- target date

Conclusion is that even with a fairly conservative growth pattern we can actually surpass 5 million users within 4 years. There is plenty of room for even more conservative calculations that still get us to over 2 million users. It can also be assumed that during this 4 year period the Bitcoin merchant market is on a whole other level, making it actually possible for Bitcoin users to spend a good amount of bitcoins each month.

I'd say we should aim for 10 million and be very happy if we reach 5 million by February 2016. We should look in the mirror and not be too happy if we only achieve 2 million. If muyuu's super conservative prediction holds true or if we don't even reach that, then we can be very disappointed.

I'm no trader on forex, have no experience in these things, but isn't it normal for shallow markets to bounce around this much?

I wish.

Where did you get these user numbers? No way we have 100k active users by Bruno's measures (exchanging hundreds of dollars worth of bitcoin monthly).

I haven't looked into the blockchain hard enough to make a decent estimate, but I'd expect a decrease of active users during the last months. We have some easy metrics like market volume that do show some growth in average for the last few months, but nowhere close to these numbers.

By Bruno's measures (100s of dollars in monthly bitcoin trade) I'm barely an active user now and I won't expect to be active for the next few months until things settle a bit.


Disappointed? that was the optimistic prediction. I'd be ecstatic. That would make bitcoin economy the size of a medium-sized modern city.

Don't trap your tail on the door on the way out...

My numbers are not related to Bruno's measures in any way. It's obvious that currently people don't spend bitcoins that much because the merchant market is still in its infancy, but it can be assumed that in 4 years the situation will be totally different. I for one have spent more bitcoins in recent months compared to the summer, when I did not spend a single bitcoin. It's a slow process but in 4 years I can imagine the situation being very different and I am confident that I'll be able to spend a good amount each month.

In my book we can count anyone as a Bitcoin user who knows about Bitcoin and owns at least some bitcoins. Usage is irrelevant at this stage. These people are all potential users once it becomes more usable. My calculations are based on the overall adoption rate of Bitcoin based on who knows about it and who owns at least some bitcoins. With that in mind I believe my numbers are not wrong.

By the way the Bitcoin network has been used increasingly in 2012. From the standpoint of transaction counts we have recovered to the levels of late August / early September. From a long term perspective (yearly), Bitcoin usage growth looks very healthy at the moment. Also exchange activity and depth has been at very good levels in 2012.

We have a few milestones ahead. Stability seemed good recently until this week. Then, we still have to have a first bitcoin creation halving and see how the market reacts to that.

After that we'll see.

But maybe I'm a bit biased to considering 4 year plans that make me filthy rich to be on the optimistic side.

I predict that when the block reward halves the price will rise. Miners won't like it but I think the market will like it a lot, which will push the price up and then it won't be so bad for the miners either. Mining difficulty effectively doubles but then again the price increase will compensate.

However new adopters might think it's unfair to have fewer new coins in circulation by design. Or maybe they won't deem the decreasing worth scheme as viable. Hard to predict what potential new users will perceive of that. Speculators are a different story, I also predict the price to go up short term when this happens or even shortly before. Mainstream adoption doesn't necessarily have to go in parallel with market price.

Because his "simple math" is complete bunk without considering that the same bitcoin can be passed around to settle multiple transactions.

That said, I don't think his final answer is outrageous.

I had to view a couple cartoons explaining the velocity of money to get up to speed. I still stand behind needing at least 2M users by 4 year's end. My on-average $172.50 USD didn't take into consideration the velocity of money aspect or coins sitting idle or lost or coins stuck in the markets. But, at a $23 USD exchange rate in 4 years to satisfy 15M users ($345M USD market cap), I don't see that cutting the mustard. To put this into perspective, that would only be about $1 USD per every current ZYNGA user.

~Bruno~

A lot of people throwing in the towel now.

I am out, with these prices I am mining at a loss.

Wow, how much do you pay for power? Even a moderately configured mining rig ought to be able to crank out in the neighborhood of 800Mhash/s while drawing 500W. That would give you around 0.52 BTC per day, or 15.6 BTC per month, with a total power use of ~360 kWh. At a price of $4 per BTC, you'd earn $62.40, so your power costs would have to be $0.17 per kWh to break even. I suppose I'm lucky that I live in an area where I pay under $0.10/kWh.

I don't blame you.

And you can rest assured that the Daytraders here don't give a dam about the consequences or repercussions
to Bitcoin miners.

They just want to short all their Bitcoins on margin and see if they can predict the next fake wall and then brag
how they can't wait for Bitcoins to hit 1 Dollar.

Brilliant.

Guess what my power cost is .17 per KWh.

Bummer. You could always keep mining if you're bullish enough to think we'll go back up to $7 again and then sell when that happens. I have to say I stopped mining when we were down at $2-$2.20 though, and now I wish I hadn't. Heh. Right now, I'm just trying to figure out how low to set my bids/asks to see if I can catch some rapid swings.

Walk away from the markets, never stop mining unless you can't afford the electric bill, then just cut back a little ;).

Even with $0.10/kWh you are pushing it considering hardware depreciation. Thanks for supporting the network, anyway.

If I had a big mining rig I'd probably keep it for the time being even at a loss. Getting mining hardware now doesn't make sense though, it makes much better sense to buy coins instead if you think they will recover short-term, or just waiting otherwise.

You guys act like the value can't go up in the future  ::) ::) ::)

You paying not only electric bill, but also with life of your hardware, it will be payed off in a year right now (freshly bought), and if it'll die earlier... Bitcoin is a waste of money then.

If you think the value may go up in the future but others don't, the others will stop mining, increasing the chances of you finding a block. Then in the future you will make even more money due to this drop. Right?

Sure. From an egoistic POV miners benefit from others stop mining, as long as mining doesn't go low enough to start putting the whole system in danger.

Right, it is all a matter of predicting the future.

Not really. If you're mining at a loss, you can use your cash in buying coins instead of paying for electricity. That will surely be a better usage of money whatever happens to BTC/$. It's only a matter of prediction only in edge cases (mining at a loss only when considering hardware devaluation, but beating the electricity bill).

Ah, makes sense

So short your coins at bitcoinica and make monies, its not hard.

I am not touching bitcoinia anymore I lost enough bitcoins from it already. I shouldn't have even attempted to leverage in the first place even if it was 1:2.5. Wasn't prepared for such a large drop in a matter of days. I got force liquidated .05 cents from the lowest price that was reached. Should have sold earlier.