Bitcoin Forum

The long term trend for bitcoin value is contraction, not expansion.

Here's the fact of the matter:

+ Bitcoin just enjoyed more media exposure over the past 3 months than can reasonably be expected to occur anywhere in the near future. There's just nothing newsworthy forthcoming unless there is something scandalous that happens again, and we're just about out of interesting scandals. We've made the rounds from illegal purchasing to hacking to market failures.
  There's just nothing left to get the attention of corporate media. The fact is that no-one cares about bitcoin as a medium of exchange, except a small core constituency of idealists here on these forums. It HAD newsworthy spectacle value as prices skyrocketed and people "got rich quick," but those times are over.  There is nothing left of newsworthy value.

+ The price run-up happened SOLELY on hype alone. There's not much analysis that needs to be done here. It was clearly a bubble that started with the Silk Road coverage, inflated with the mining craze, and ended with the Gox scandal. That's it folks. Bitcoin jumped the shark 3 weeks ago.

+ The current "stability" is no such thing. There is no stability when there's no backing economy.  The only "stability" we're seeing is roughly the same sub 10-15,000 (could be exceedingly lower, and possibly a bit higher though doubtfully) "investors" propping up the price and using trading bots to maintain the appearance of a functioning market and "stability."
  The fact is that the market has been on a slow and steady DECLINE ever since Gox came back online. This is because there is no new blood entering the market, just the same old speculators throwing more of their paychecks into it; BUT, not enough to grow the market. That's why were seeing a steady loss of a few cents of USD value everyday. And this will continue for the long haul.

+ Echoing the same dilemma of 3 months ago when bitcoin began catching on with speculators, "Where is the bitcoin economy."  Well folks, this is it. The list of bitcoin merchants hasn't grown at all, and in fact if you browse the Trade section of bitcoin.org itself, and explore some of the merchants there you'll find that some of them have removed their bitcoin advertisements and no longer APPEAR to accept it. I encourage you to peruse them and see for yourself, because during that excercise you'll also see that basically all businesses listed are extremely small time, mom and pop shop operations, and most of them quite amateur at that.  That is your bitcoin economy. That is what you have to work with now, and for any reasonable foreseeable future.

This is not a thread about the speculation of bitcoin's future, these are the facts.

All of which begs the question: what are you still doing here, then?

Educating you.

Never underestimate the desire to be right on the internet.

These are two statement from the same post...  




my question:  Aren't these two statements mutually exclusive?

edit:  after rereading my post..  I should have said:  Aren't these two statements contradictory?

This forum total members is still growing 18% monthly.

I don't believe so.  Was there an error in my assessment you'd like to point out that would throw my conclusion into doubt?

In the first paragraph, you use the word newsworthy three times... that's bad English.

In the second paragraph, you use the words SOLELY and alone within the same sentence, a redundancy... also bad English.

In the third paragraph, you use doubtfully when it should've been "doubtful"

In the fourth paragraph, the words reasonable foreseeable future make very little sense.

Your last sentence is flat-out wrong, as you are clearly speculating on the future of bitcoin... whether the paragraphs above contain facts is entirely beside the point.

If you don't mind, I will take my education from someone whose language skills are slightly more polished.

Cheers,

I disagree.

The price has stabilized at roughly 50% of the spike high.  It is now backing and filling and distributing from weak hands to strong hands.  All of this is perfectly normal in a healthy market.  There are so many amazing things about Bitcoin, even one of them is enough to make it a success.  For example, in my video "Bitcoins and Borders"  I outline how the Bitcoin has single-handedly destroyed the power of capital controls, currency controls, and exchange controls.  Just that function ALONE is enough to give Bitcoin a value of 1000.  But there are so many others.  You are too close now, as you are not seeing the forest for the trees.  Take a step back and you'll see a forest that will grow for the next 100 years.

Bitcoins and Borders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQ4OrzULoU&feature=channel_video_title

Contradiction alert.

You're going to gauge the financial viability of bitcoin based upon...forum members?

Quick everyone, create new gmail addresses and register new forum accounts, I think we've found a solution to the declining bitcoin market!

I'm glad you were inspired by my thread - right down to the topic phrasing. Lets see if we can look at this objectively.


So, you know the future then? That is what you're implying. I tend to disagree.


You may want to look at my other analysis, which specifically looked at other 'bubbles' in the past. Here's a little reminder:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26117.0 - "The Dichotomy of a Bubble - Why Bitcoin Will Endure"

For any 'bubble' comparison, we have until the end of August to be proven wrong or not. Again, you claim some kind of future knowledge, which I doubt you have.



Again, you claim to know future value. I find this interesting, as no-one has clear knowledge of the future. My post about future potential growth wasn't about dates and times, only a general guide as to how I think things will work out. I didn't claim to know for sure. Why are you so sure, then?


I find most facts have citations - all I can see in your post is some unconfirmed knowledge of future events. So which are you, an oracle, or someone talking out of their ass?

Thread fail right away, not a fact at all, can't take the rest of your post seriously now.

Except it hasn't stabilized. It's being artificially propped up and failing it at that. Again, BTC has not had any gain in value since Gox opened back up.  It has been a slow bleeding.

Use your imagination.  What is all of God's Hell's can you imagine anyone in the corporate media writing about bitcoin?

Bitcoin was in some of the largest financial publications in the world.  You think there's anyone left out there that gives a damn to write about it again? Why would that be, pray tell?

Please, maybe you could emulate a possible headline?

There is nothing left that's worth saying to the public about bitcoin, from the mouths of the corporate media. Period.

Again, sorry to be stickler and all - but you have some proof to offer us? I mean, if your argument isn't solely fabricated, of course.

Look at the fucking charts, maybe? Idiot?

EDIT: and oh, btw, keep in mind that the value of the USD is falling., especially with the recent Bernanke news. Yeah, always remember that.

If 200 people are registering every day, then how is it shrinking? Are you stupid or something?

Lol...

Overall, I agree with the OP's sentiment.  I've been quite frustrated with how slowly things have been progressing.  In the last 6 weeks, I have worked with two separate sites to begin accepting Bitcoin as an alternative payment method.  These aren't little mom and pop operations either.  One of the sites is hard coding the exchange rate at $20.  The other is using market price + 0.5, so there is already a huge discount being factor in.  Yet sadly, fewer Bitcoin orders have come in over the last 6 weeks combined than either of these sites typically receives by credit card over the course of a single hour.  The vendors I've talked to absolutely love the idea of getting out from under Visa/MCs thumb, but there's just not enough incentive to accept this form of payment if no one's using it.

However, I also think there are a few relatively minor developments that could turn the trend very rapidly upward.  There is still presently no effective way to introduce the average consumer to Bitcoins.  We're facing a major chicken and egg problem, and this side of it is just as important as getting the merchants to accept it (if not more so).  The only solution I see for this is for someone to build a very professional online wallet service that also sells at least small units of bitcoin (even at 2x market price).

One of the sites I've referred to above is an online game that sells monthly subscriptions.  They have expressed an interest in selling the service on a per game basis (for something like $0.05), using Bitcoin for micro-payments.  They won't move on this until they can also link to a wallet service where their customers can sign up for a Bitcoin account and immediately fund it, even with just $5-10 worth of coin.  Once these initial road blocks to growth are overcome, things could expand very quickly.

Oh I'm so sorry, struck a nerve, have I?

I know it is bothersome to include some charts or links to what you are talking about, but since most people seem able to embed images of all kinds in these forums, I'm sure you can roust yourself to do the same.

And I hate to point things out that turn your argument into so much mud scraped off a boot heel, but a declining dollar value would only change the USD/BTC valuation to the upside. You do know how that works, right?

I'll be here when you get it all together, I know you are too busy queuing up your latest swearwords to answer coherently.

The number of members on the forum grows by almost 1% every day. That's pretty high growth if you ask me. The drop in price is because the growth forecast isn't as great as people expected back in June.

HEY!  Tell them about Dwolla.

Interestingly enough, through necessity of selling my mined coins, the bitcoin community introduced me to the only Visa/MC/Paypal alternative I need, bitcoins be utterly dammed.

Check out Dwolla.

Dwolla is what we should all be evangelizing to vendors, not bitshits.

"Except it hasn't stabilized. It's being artificially propped up and failing it at that. Again, BTC has not had any gain in value since Gox opened back up.  It has been a slow bleeding."

Again,

Your view seems to be terribly impatient and shortsighted.  My primary holding are silver and gold and I have continued to convert a small amount of them to bitcoins; I have about 70 now.  2 of my smartest friends who are in high tech laughed and mocked when I explained Bitcoin.  Then they installed the software.  Then I sent them a coin.  Now they are mining them.

At a price of 14 the market cap of Bitcoin 100 million dollars.  That is peanuts.  If you had an IPO of a company which provided immunity to exchange controls, the world would pay 1000 times that to get a part of it.  Look what they did to Quadaffi. They froze 60 billion of his assets and sent in armies to take his gold.  How much would he have paid for a password protected way to secure a large chunk of his wealth that only he can access?  The world changing implicatons of the idea of Bitcoin have yet to even begun to be explored.  Bitcoin will be more revolutionary than the PC and more world changing than the internet.  Sit back and watch.....

Exactly dumbass, that's why the bitcoin valuation is even LOWER than perceived, because USD is taking another big hit to value, yet bitcoin's relative value still bleeds, and will continue to.

And fuck you, do your own research if you want to be a part of this conversation. The evidence is all around you, just open your eyes and shut your mouth.  Or at least, do some research before you flap your trap.

Start here: bitcoincharts.com

Bitcoincharts.com shows that the value of Bitcoins have doubled almost every month, on average, since the beginning. I think you need better sources to support your flawed arguments.

It's also because miners have to pay for the costs of the equipment and electricity they incurred when the BTC peaked at $30... and let's not forget the possibility that some early adopter really, really wants to get his hands on that Porsche.

Truly, what Bitcoin is doing today, next week, next month, is almost irrelevant... it works as a currency, it works as a commodity or an asset, and contrary to the fairly baseless statements made by OP, there is a rapidly growing community around it, which includes lots of smart people implementing lots of smart ideas.

HAHAHA, really?

Like...seriously?

The price of bitcoins doubled *almost* every month....ON AVERAGE...lol and here;s the best part, SINCE THE BEGINNING.

Oh man, what a wonderful glut of qualifiers you've got there imperi....

Nice refutation, just copying what I said. What are you, 6 years old?

How did this douche become a senior member?

Uh, miners costs were no different when it was $30 than it is now...and yes I agree, the "early adopters" can and will continue to bleed as much value out of bitcoins as they possibly can.

And a rapidly growing community means exactly jack shit to such a supposedly AMAZING financial instrument where there NO ECONOMY backing it up.

Welcome to the future.

Which only proves, in light of a non-existent goods/services economy, that people are playing Bitcoin like a casino, nothing more.

And casinos really suck at making money, right Shinobi?

The Silk Road has thousands of members. Welcome to reality.

By doing the same thing all the other Sr. Members did:

Express their inconsequential opinions about a inconsequential hobby on an inconsequential message board on the Internet.

Contrary to minority opinion this isn't some bastion of excellence, relevance, or substance...

Multi-Level Marketers too. :D

Well, I see I was right about the swear-queue. Lets see if there is anything worthwhile here...

Hmm, no references, except some obtuse comment about bitcoincharts...

I'll check back later to see if you have anything relevant. I still believe in your potential, maybe you're dizzy and feverish. Ate some bad food perhaps? Drank too much after breakfast? I can't say.

Perhaps you are just a chatbot gone awry, feeding upon a constant input of devolving markov-chain references.

Oh, I made sure to emphasize the most idiotic parts.  It wasn't entirely just a childish parroting.

OP, you're confusing bitcoins market price with bitcoin itself.  The two have about as much to do with each other as executive compensation and stock performance.

If bitcoin's price crashes through its "true value" then it's once again a golden opportunity for new investors.  Sucks for those who bought in at $20-30, but such is the nature of investing in trends without proper technical and fundamental analysis.   Riches to rags stories are just as sensational as rags to riches, as are "I told you so" analysis from the self-important.  Media coverage will continue, attracting more and more attention.

You also underestimate the importance of grass roots word of mouth advertising.  I'm here because of a posting in a GPU forum (anandtech, for the curious).  Had I known earlier I'd have been involved earlier.  Since I found out about bitcoin I've introduced 20 people to it, several of whom are now following the story as it develops.

TL;DR -- If you view this as a flash in the pan get rich scheme you're right, the easy money is gone.  Long term is still a giant questionmark.

Oh, and by the way, how'd your return to Newegg go?

For the sake of anyone landing on the above post, it is just untrue. Please look through the thread and judge for yourselves.

if Bitcoin won't reach -$10 value in the nearest future it has no long-term expanding growth potential.

Good post.  You're right, btcoin exists wholly apart from it's valuation in fiat, but that is that only measure that matters to the majority of bitcoiners anyway, which is actually quite ample evidence to the hollowness of bitcoin in general.

And, I assume that was the thread on anand tech about mining, which is why you're here - to get your small slice of the pie.  Well, good luck. Just like all the other "grassroots" newcomers, you might eventually pay off a portion of your gaming rig. Kudos.

I paid off a nice chunk of mine, and despite what that moron said about contacting NewEgg and getting my refund canceled, everything went through just fine.

Synaptic, I know you must be tired pounding out on the keyboard as you have in the last hour, but honestly - nothing could be farther from the truth. Here it is, just in case you forgot:


I'll give you time, again - I realize raging and foaming at the mouth takes energy away from responding constructively...

I don't see anyone who's said anything to give any evidence at all that there's still newsworthiness in bitcoin.  I even specifically ASKED for it.  Do you have any input?  Can you explain to all of us that are very eagerly awaiting, what is left for the corporate media to expound on?

Nor has there been any substantial refutation of ANY of my other points.

You'd think if my little arguments were so weak that someone would have posted contrary evidence, but they havent.

They just baselessly attack the value of my own expression without offering counter evidence.

Thank you for the further rhetorical ad hominem.

Here, please have this complimentary pillar of flesh to satiate your appetite.

Hey, Synaptic, there are ways and ways to go about this, but let's try this one: If you go on MtGox right now you will see that, at least by one measure, bitcoins HAVE a value (around 14 USD as I type this). Consequently, if you're going to posit they don't, the onus is on YOU, not us, to base that assertion. You haven't. But, you and others have kept me, and others, mildly entertained for a little while... for that I'm ever so grateful.

I didn't say they didn't have a present value.  Read the fucking title of this thread maybe?

C'mon everyone, let's continue to dilute the argument with further meaningless posts.

Please start shrinking value of bitcoins, I'm ready to buy at $10 ea.  Put your bitcoins where your mouth is.

Synaptic: Sorry bro but you are simply outclassed.  You are taking a few opinions, calling them facts, and getting in a pissing fight over others' opinions.  Very few people need your "education".

The real question is:  how much have you invested in Bitcoin that hasn't paid off that has made you so emotionally unstable?  Are you just angry because you missed out on the bonanza of value created for early adopters in 2009 and 2010?  Or did you buy a load of bitcoins at $30 a piece and are getting impatient?

Good luck my unfortunate OP.

Thanks for another meaningless post!

And boy do I have some news for you friend:

RALLY!

Yes that's right everyone!  RALLY!

GO GO GO GO!

I'm not outclassed at all.  There hasn't been a single refutation of my original thesis that bitcoin will continue to bleed value based on the all the circumstances I've listed.

But let me ask you directly Mike, please do tell,

What is incorrect in my original post?

I think Synaptic is bipolar and he is in a manic state right now. Soon he will be in a hospital.

Haaahaha... synaptic... bipolar... now THAT is funny

Have you original post, I don't mind to challenge it.

Just for you I changed my name to reflect the actions I have taken based on reading your post.

Did you ever caught me doing that?  I'm taking very neutral position in not speculating and not pumping shit either way. But I'm strong bull who doesn't need to try to convey my view upon everyone else - this is confidence. Market will go to least resistant and most acceptable value - everything else is SPECULATION.  BTW I perceive you as bull too only cross-dressed in bear skin

Silk Road members should all be thrown in jail and forgotten about along with you for wanting to profit off the gains of the Cartels.

Lol... thesis

If I have dollar bills, am I profiting off of cartels? Also I was talking about the existence of their business, not personal opinions about drug prohibition and enforcement.

Not to hijack this quality thread but...

I mined thousands of coins in 2010 and I should be thrown in jail because now there is demand for the coins?  Who cares where the demand is coming from, if I can exchange them for USD then that is my prerogative.  I don't see that as a reason to throw someone in jail just because criminals to US law want them.

Again, thank you everyone for your very well reasoned and informative posts.

In classic forum.bitcoin.org fashion you have once again displayed the level of intelligence and reasoning ability of bitcoin proponents.

Kudos.

Yes, BillX, and I'm not sure you want to go down the slippery slope of who should be held accountable for who else profiting from what... if you live in the US, UK or pretty much any industrialised nation and reap the rewards thereof, you might be shocked at what you have been profiting from.

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

yes because until bitcoin shrink to 0 it wont have a chance to expand in a long term. thank you for very sound and logical POV

Having coins != being part of an organization.

Ok, this is just blatant trolling.  It must be Friday.

What about miners?

What about bananas?

Just saying, if we're to say that the primary economic value of bitcoins are illegal transactions...

Here are some headlines for you.

BITCOIN STILL GOING STRONG AFTER HACKING!

ILLEGAL GOODS MARKET STILL ONLINE DESPITE WIDE PUBLICITY!

MAN BUYS CAR WITH BITCOINS!

MAN BUTS HOUSE WITH BITCOINS!

CHARITIES NOW ACCEPTING BITCOIN DONATIONS!

WE THOUGHT IT WOULD DIE! - BITCOINS STILL ALIVE... AND GROWING!

No this is blatant trolling on Friday
http://video.id.msn.com/watch/video/worst-song-ever-friday-by-rebecca-black/1j56fr3hl (http://video.id.msn.com/watch/video/worst-song-ever-friday-by-rebecca-black/1j56fr3hl)

cliff-notes of OP:

I WANT TO BUY CHEAP BITCOINS! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

</thread>

Just because you can't think of any potential newsworthy events, that doesn't mean there aren't any.  It just means you have a limited imagination.

Every single one of those headlines is obviously from the perspective of someone with a direct stake in bitcoins, appealing to an audience who are versed in bitcoins and also hold a direct stake in bitcoins.

Notice that when the EFF and wikileaks started accepting bitcoin there wasn't any attention given to it by the MSM.  The wider public has NO IDEA about these inconsequential happenings, which to bitcoin proponents are news.

No one in the corporate media cares about that dude who is traveling around using only bitcoins.  No-one in the corporate media cares that someone traded a steaming paper bag full of their own shit for a yacht.

Also, I LOVE that with ILLEGAL GOODS MARKET STILL ONLINE DESPITE WIDE PUBLICITY! you don't directly mention bitcoins but you DIRECTLY imply that bitcoins are what keep this market functioning.

You people are wonderful.

This is pure bullshit and heresy! Got any numbers to back that up or are you just assuming shit from what you read in big media?
Please tell me, who in their right mind will run to SR to get illegal drugs after such huge media exposure?  there will more official agents honey-potting shit for buyers and sellers than there ever was on craiglist posing as escorts and men seeking women.  anyone thinks silkroad is a safe place to get their fix is INSANE

What's not safe about it? If you knew anything about you would know it's pretty secure. You only buy from sellers who have high ratings and good feedback. (btw I don't do drugs)

Shows how little you know and how much you assume.  *MY* analysis showed BTC overbought.  I started selling as quickly as my rig was producing BTC.  At 24 on 13th of June, 22, 20, 19.5, gox pause,several x 16, 15, 14 and the last ones at 13.88 yesterday, 14th of July.  Another got produced last night, and a couple more are in a NMC<->BTC trading account.

So for me, my investment in video hardware including power was paid for in about 12 days, with the past 18 being pure profit (granted, I didn't make anywhere near as much during the past 18 as the first 6).  Oh, and the hardware was bought for entertainment, not income.  I'm really looking forward to mining not being viable any more so I get to enjoy it guilt-free.  This is the first time my hardware hobby ever paid for itself directly.

If BTC prices (and most likely difficulty) crash hard but I feel BTC itself is still viable you know what I'm going to do?  Gamble several 10s of K on a rack setup and industrial power rates at a co-lo facility.  I may not be an early adopter but there's still plenty of pyramid to be built under me, and there are far riskier investments which don't yield anywhere near as well.

And what about your imagination?

I just responded to someone who took a shot and took the piss out of him easily.

C'mon everyone, try it.  Let's all use our imaginations to come up with something that might show up in THE ECONOMIST again, or THE NEW YORK POST, or TIME.  Or really any publication that has a wide audience.

So if there aren't daily articles in the New York Times about Bitcoin, it's dying?

What?

You just proved my assumption correct...

Jesus fuck, you people.

Ok, fine, how about:

Bitcoin value in USD surpasses 1 billion.  Bloomberg would take that.
Over 100 New York restaurants accept Bitcoin.  NYT would take that.
Man pays alimony in Bitcoins, Ex-Wife finally satisfied. Fox would take that

can you explain how SR works? i never been there.. from what i undersand SR provides service to hook up dealers and buyers.  the protocol they are using is pretty safe - that i will give to them.  if someone orders drugs from there - they must be delivered somewhere, no?  what stops undercover agents to pose as dealers and buyers to catch real dealers and buyes? how is this different from what they were doing with escort services on craiglist?  no sane person after that media exposure will ever go to SR to get their fix! unless they know dealers personally who tell them to commerce with them through SR

If you excercise any reading comprehention and read my first post, I'm actually saying that if there aren't any reasonable reasons upcoming for bitcoin to get the media exposure that DRIVES SPECULATION which is only thing at all that DRIVES BITCOIN VALUE, then yes, it's dying.

Nothing prevents a honeypot.  The real risk is in the buyer who eventually needs to pick up and consume the drugs.  The pick up can be a sting, and the consumption can be poison.  It turns out people who want drugs are willing to accept these risks.

Lol @ the alimony one.

But yes, certainly the first two would be quite news worthy.

LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING THOSE.

lol...

Yes he seems to make a point but then contradict it later on in his own statement.

how does SR provide safe harbor for dealers who need to deliver to a buyer?

Anything that doesn't have 100% chance and hard proof of something being true is called SPECULATION.

But what does that have to do with the OP?   I may be out in left field, but this is what I feel people associate with various trading timeframes:

"retirement" - 10+ years
"long term" - 3-10 years
"short term" - 1-3 years
"this year" - 0-12 months
"near term" - 1-6 months
"swing trade" - 1-4 weeks
"day trade" - never take your position home

If you meant "swing trade" timeframe and use that in your OP I'm sure plenty of people disagreeing with you in this thread would sagely nod their heads.  But you said long term.  If bitcoin isn't $0 in 10 years it's going to be a lot, *LOT* more than that.  And that has nothing to do with trading or early adopters or any of your points and everything to do with regulation and other as yet unforseen factors.

Not at all.

I offered ample evidence that can easily be verified by hard sources and simple logical reasoning to back up my thesis.

Therefore, no contradiction.  Facts follow formula, and I provided the requisite references.

I doesn't have to be a huge media outlet to drive speculation.  If the less techy public learns that you can buy a car with bitcoins, then that is going to get their attention.

There really isn't a need for a safe harbor for the dealer.  They can ship anonymously (drop ship) and the transaction is done in Bitcoins.  They just log on and sell whatever they want.  SR does provide escrow, is that what you are asking about?

Back in February when Bitcoin hit above $1 it backed and filled for 1.75 months until it went over a $1 again. So what technical analysis are you using? With this pattern we're looking at the first or second week of August before we can see any movement possibilities.

I'm actually not someone who thinks it will go to $0 in the long term.  There is definitely a use for bitcoins, just nowhere near where the zealots and speculators want/need it to be.

I see the real USD value settling lower than $10, but certainly above $0. The illegal transactions alone are enough to sustain SOME value.

LOL.

Undercover agents can't pose as dealers because they don't have good reputation and good feedback from successful sales. Furthermore, they lack early number userids.

Driving in a car is "crazy" for someone who spent their whole life in the Amazon rain forest, but once they have done it enough they know it is safe. Like buying on the Silk Road.

Why would it, if they can just buy it with USD?

Cause I can tell you flat the fuck out that no-one will EVER finance a car with bitcoins.  And if bitcoins are as good as cash for that purchase, what the fuck is the point?

True, that is a big part of the SR community (reputation and early userids).  However, if a drug is priced just a little bit cheaper, there will be people who buy it even if the guy doesn't have much reputation.  And BTW, the agents can just work together over a few months and build up reputation.

I think you vastly underestimate the resourcefulness and long term planning of Federal law enforcement.

...oh wait. imperi.

NVM, carry on.

Yeah, but only to the extent that it provides for a convenient number, perhaps $1/1BTC. The actual value could be $0.01, just something against which an exchange rate can be had for real currency. People using Silk Road don't give a shit what that value of BTC is. It's just an anonymizing proxy. USD, etc. -> BTC -> USD, etc.

 

So the agents would sell real drugs to people? This is what you're saying? lol

There can be incentives to using bitcoins to make a purchase like that.  Say someone offers a discount if they buy in bitcoins.

Absolutely, BUT there will be added value by speculators who still see some market activity, thus driving up the price above the lowest necessary value for whatever level of trade.

No.

Agent 1 sells 1/8 oz of pot to Agent 2.  Agent 2 says he did a good job.
Agent 1 sells 1/8 oz of pot to Agent 3.  Agent 3 says he did a good job.

This is what I am saying.

This is an important point. I think that many folks here think that the Government is "dumb". It is *not*. It may be operating along principles that you disagree with, but it is most definitely not stupid.

i see, i was underestimating SR capabilities. I retract my comments above.
I would still advise to stay far away from that site though. mailing drugs sounds like asking for trouble.

BitcoinHoarder, good point above

If the value is $0.01, then one person can spend 10k and get 1 million bitcoins. So I think that is under-valued.

Yeah, bullshit incentives are actually the only thing that COULD get people to buy in bitcoins.

And what astoundingly extreme circumstances can you imagine that would drive a used car dealer to not only start excepting bitcoins, but to TAKE A LOSS relative to a sale in USD?

I swear, I have never been among a more banal group of people since I took a comical trip to a local scientology org...

If you don't offer a way that law enforcement could *viably* disrupt Silk Road, rather than take down a dozen or so buyers (and generate lots of free publicity), then you don't have a valid argument.

There has been a lot of ribbing in this thread but this is serious now.  You should never take a trip to a local SCI house, even if it is for "comical" reasons.

/PSA

Have you ever heard of "for sale by owner"?

imperi everyone,

let's give him a round of applause.

Have you ever tried to buy a car belonging to her recently passed away husband from a little old lady in Salina, Kansas with "cash" while her apparently inbred yet highly paranoid relatives supervise the transaction?  Let me tell you, it's not fun negotiating what type of check and guarantees she will accept let alone getting them in the middle of Outer Mongolia, 400 miles from home.

If (and this is still if) bitcoins were mainstream enough for her and her relatives to know it's an irreversible, secure transaction I could make from my phone and they could verify in 10 minutes I'd have had that 67 Bronco without two dozen new grey hairs.

It would only take a dozen stings to disrupt confidence in the community.  So the community would move to the next place (minus a certain percent of people who get too scared), and so would the agents.  That's how law enforcement goes.

Have you ever heard of "no-one gives a fuck?"

Again, no-one cares that a guy traded a brown paper bag containing a copious bowl movement that's held closed by scotch tape with a drawing made by his 6 year old first born son on the front for a fancy yacht.

I mean, really? Every odd sale or trade on craigslist is newsworthy? Enough to drive market speculation on the bags of shit exchange?

I love it here, I really do.

Everyone lives in very separate locations, so each 'sting' would cost thousands of dollars per college kid to arrest in coordinated efforts, and some would fail because the address recipient wasn't the drug buyer.

edit:

Nobody has explained yet how the police could get good feedback, which is necessary to make lots of sales. Are they going to hack the site? lol

No, no one cares because people buy things on craigslist in cash (USD).  People have been buying cars in cash since they were invented.  To my knowledge, no one has ever bought a car with bitcoins.

I don't think Synaptic has ever spent more than $200 before, from his mom's credit card.

Screenplay says?

IMPERI: Exists stage left.

This is trivial.  Bust a drug dealer, offer him or her prosecution immunity in return for setting up sting op.  Done deal.

HAHAHAH

HAHAHAHAH


HAHAH.

To my knowledge, no-one has ever bought anything with a paper bag of shit.

TO MY KNOWLEDGE.

If only there were a popular news outlet that would cover such a story so I could stay abreast of all things bag of shit related...

Why are your responses so sarcastic?  You can leave.

So meanwhile the drug dealer is still selling drugs to maintain good feedback?? The moment someone doesn't get their drugs, they rant about it in the forums, and the drug dealer's rep is screwed. Sting fails.

Maybe because I was being genuine? You can stay.

Synaptic, I'll give you an example.  I buy all my cars in cash, period.  The latest car I bought cost $6000.  I withdrew $6000 from my bank in cash and carried that with me to make the purchase.  It's very nerve racking carrying that much cash in your pocket.  With a bitcoin transaction, you don't carry any cash in your pocket and yet it is as good as cash.

Have you tried Dwolla?

Bro, listen.  I already explained this.  Take 12 agents.  Have 1 agents pretend to sell many times to the other 11 and have the 11 leave glowing feedback.  It does not take much to get reputation on SR.  Have you visited it?     http://ianxz6zefk72ulzz.onion/ via Tor.

And then two other people try to buy drugs and it drops below 100%. Sting fails.

Holy sweet Jesus imperi has outsmarted the Feds on this one.

Fuck, someone give him his own CSI spinoff...

No, that's not how SR works.  If you try to buy something from a dealer, he doesn't have to oblige and future buyers don't require that certain other buyers have already left positive feedback.  It just takes some good reputation to lure in a buyer, and it doesn't take much.

If nobody buys from the dealer, then they can't get in trouble. If they do buy, they can leave negative feedback.

Lol, fuck.

You my friend, are a dumbass.

But they will.  They will see that he is offering good prices and has reputation.  They don't know ahead of time whether it is a sting.

Then they can leave negative feedback.

Dwolla?  Really?  Dwolla?  An unknown internet site that takes forever and a century to clear funds, isn't a regulated or recognized financial institution?  People will accept a personal check LONG before they buy off a "now, I'm going to enter a few numbers into this web site and you'll see your money in your bank account in about 3 days.  Oh, and I'll need your account's electronic transfer code, and I'll be driving off with your car as soon as you sign that title..."

I too have bought several cars with cash, and I know what I'm talking about.  You clearly do not.  (p.s, other guy: instead of cash, try cashier's check.  most people are willing to accept that if you negotiate it beforehand).

ITT:

Bitcoiners hijack a thread to discuss the only appreciable bitcoin economy: Silk Road.

Also, imperi makes a dipshit of himself even more.

Don't they have a buyer reputation as well (which should make this "trick" exponentially more complicated)?

Yes, I agree with your point that you can buy cars using USD.  We've already established that.  The original point was that I believe the purchase of a car using BTC would create interest.  

Also brand new seller accounts are auctioned off now, so you have to pay a lot to get one.

That's a good tip.  Although, one thing I love about purchasing with cash in hand is the bargaining power.

Actually I use Dwolla as my preferred method of payment for my business.  I have had 4 clients since I started using Dwolla two months ago start paying me through Dwolla.

It's not unknown Internet site, and is actually partnered with a number of banks.  It doesn't take 3 days for the transaction to show up in your account, that happens immediately. It also doesn't take 3 days to pull it into your bank account.  That happens in one banking day, since it's  merely a "checking" front end tied to your banking account.

And furthermore you dolt, people would accept a Dwolla payment LONG before they accept some fucking retarded bitcoins that they have to A. Make a Dwolla account to get USD out of anyway becuase they have to go to B. fucking Mt. Gox or some other stupid exchange, and THEN, trade their bitcoins for USD, pull it BACK into their Dwolla account, and THEN AGAIN wait for it to go into their bank account.

So let's see, in your idiotic scenario where cash is such a motherfucking hassle and for whatever reason you were too stupid to originally consider a personal check since that's apparently a better option for this hypothetical seller, then what would the seller rather do?  Create a Dwolla account, get verified, and basically have the money deposited directly into his back account, or go through a bunch of goddamn asinine intermediary steps with bitcoin markets to get his USD out of bitcoin?

You my friend, have just been made a fool of.

What business is this that you speak of?

Also, the seller may just want the bitcoins for speculation.

Same here. And what does that say for bitcoins?

"Hey I'll trade you some bitcoins for that car.  You might make a MILLION DOLLARS OFF OF IT.  Have we got a deal?"

Now that's leverage.

Heh, the same leverage I hear from Multi-level Marketers telling me that having sausage parties at my house will make me rich, or that using bitcoin for daily exchanges will make the world a more rainbowy place for all.

My business.

And yes, I agree wholly. Bitcoin speculators speculating.

Lol, yes you established that in the post I was referring to.  How do we know you're not just some long-winded foul-mouthed kid trolling the forums?

HEY EVERYONE, THIS GUY WANTS TO KNOW WHO I AM.  CAN WE REMIND HIM ABOUT HOW GREAT ANONYMITY IS! THIS IS THE BITCOIN FORUM, AFTER ALL!

You now agree on one of the great selling points of bitcoin :)

Yeah, accept I don't really care all that much to either prove my identity or keep it hidden, since I've already revealed what I do for a living in other threads.

I simply don't give a shit about your curiosity.

Or about spelling, clearly :-)

Are you an English major?

If so, where's my fucking triple latte with whipped cream and caramel?

I think I'd like to speak to you're manager.

You are talking about today.  And hell no, I those people wouldn't sign up and trust Dwolla just because I told them so.  It's good for Dwolla that people you know are instantly trusting, the people I deal with not so much.  And by the way, TradeHill *used* to have electronic funds transfer in and out functionality.  What's to say they or MtGox won't have it again?  Besides, dollars need not be involved at all if bitcoin is mainstream, which is when my scenario is practical.  I consider bitcoins far far FAR more secure than numbers at a single web site "associated" with banks.  Yes, even today I'd rather have enough funds in bitcoin to buy a house than several hundred grand at Dwolla.

Your "thesis" is long term.  Long term bitcoin will become mainstream barring technical flaws with implementation or regulatory hurdles.   As a mainstream currency it is vastly superior to current offerings.  But you go ahead and spew obscenities and nonsense.

This is usually a sure sign that the person is trying to force an agenda.

It's not superior.  This has been fleshed out numerous times, but unfortunately threads here are just as meaningless as the "currency" it's about, but let me just remind you that John Q. Public will never give a shit about bitcoins. NEVER.

It's simply another fact of bitcoin: To the other 300 million Americans and the rest of the financially advanced world that exist outside of this backwater forum, It does not make sense to use.  At all.  At all.  At all.

HUUR DUUR, REPITION MAKES YOU RIGHT, HUH SYNAPTIC...HURR.

*insert all other ad hominem here*

Bitcoin Forums: The show.

    Description:  Watch as amateur investors and young anarcho-liberarians ignore negative assessments of their hobby and attack the personas of the iconoclasts.

It's a good thing, or otherwise we'd have had 300 million Facebooks, Googles, Microsofts...

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.  The later cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.  -A.E.

Not to say that every hare-brained idea is genius, but you really are blind if you don't see the advantages of a secure, easily transferred, convenient digital currency exchange medium.   We're done here, your argument boils down to "I don't believe in bitcoin and neither do other slack-jawed types."  That can't be addressed.

and that would be personae... really, you shouldn't try to use complicated words

No my argument actually doesn't boil down to that, you're just too stupid to read the top post and reply with any type of substantial rebuttal.

Are you that English major again?

And where's my fucking coffee?

Get you're manager out here now.

The profanity and constant attacks on people who oppose your views isn't strengthening your position.  You would have been better off taking the high road and sticking to your points than allowing this thread to degrade into.... well this.

I actually agree with your basic premise, the amount of fanaticism by some Bitcoin posters is almost cultish.  But to paint the entire community with such a broad stroke would be wrong on my part because there are some very intelligent and rational people here as well.  However, the way you're conveying your point is not going to get those types to engage in a reasonable debate, you're only going to encourage hostility.

Meh. So it goes.

I didn't think "your" was a complicated word...

IMHO it's way too early to gauge the direction of the BTC based on temporary spike in the charts.

Well then your really making an ass out of yourself by admissioning that, are not you?

Agreed.  Reading tea leaves here.

Bitcoin Forums: The alternative spell checker.

lol

Not really.  There's plenty of quantitative evidence to the facts presented. You need only see them for what they are, or at least pose real and effectual evidence to the contrary.

As I said once before... a monkey with a ouija board has a better chance of predicting where this is going than anyone here... but it's fun to correct the mistakes made by the little trolls.

<rant>

I've put a bit of money & time into btc. I too have concerns about it's future.

There is not enough critics on this forum. It's like browsing crackberry.

Often anytime something critical of bitcoin is mentioned a parade of fanbois drown it.

It's really in my best interest for btc to succeed. I don't want to look stupid.

Bitcoin is technically sound. It seems the majority of what backs bitcoin is not.

</rant>

And you're the bright bulb who can't figure out "The Long View" doesn't mean "next week."  For the rest of the month, sure, your points make sense.  I already said taking a myopic view I agree with you.

Long term none of that matters.

Change your title to "Re: Bitcoin Shrinking - the next week view.  Probably." and we're in violent agreement.

I love you buddy. Here, let's hug.

Group hug everyone.

HURR DURR, I TYHINK YOU MEAN "THERE AREN'T" HURR DURR.  WELCOME TO THE BITCOIN FORUMS: THE ALTERNATIVE SPELL CHECKER AND GRAMMAR ENGINE.

In all seriousness, thank you.  That's why I started posting here, because there is such banality that has lead a personal friend into folly (no, not you you know who you are, the "other guy"), that I find it both an honor and also quite entertaining to put up with the banal douchebags that frequent this place to potentially give some of the lurkers some perspective.

You don't look stupid.  You're one of the few people that have posted in this thread that actually seems to have the ability to reason critically.

"The Long View" is exactly as long as it takes for:

A. More media hype to drive empty money into bitcoin

AND/OR

B. The "bitcoin economy" to pickup and grow.

Neither of those things are about to happen. Not in a month, not in two, not in 6.  There's nothing on the horizon for bitcoin, and that's what this thread was started for. The mining boom is over. Silk Road is out of the bag. We had a huge scandal that met the ADHD attention span of the mainstream media. It's done for the long term.

Now we just watch the value bleed...

This thread really has gone to hell. Let's stick to the issues, please, as I will have a very bad day if I have to spend the rest of the afternoon deleting personal attacks.

We have a lot of patience though. I don't care if it takes 5, 10 years to adopt bitcoin on larger scale. There isn't any hurry. Look how Linux started, or any other open source project.

I saw a story about a guy developing a bitcoin "ATM" and another working on a bitcoin POS system. And then of course all your run of the mill "early adopters" running amateur websites for primarily virtual services and oddball goods and basically accepting bitcoin as a novelty (bitsnacks or whatever the hell it's called, anyone? Yeah, let's pay a huge markup on snacks that could be had for 50% at COSTCO...why? Pure novelty, period.).

There's plenty of examples of failed investors/inventors, and this sadly will be one of them.  I feel bad for them because in the case of the POS and ATM guys, they're obviously really clever and using their minds.  However it's unfortunate that they're gambling on ideals and circumstances which simply do not fit the mainstream appeal and never will.  Otherwise their ingenuity would serve them extremely well.

The long view - our Sun will exhaust its energy. Everyone dies - Bitcoin becomes totally useless. The end! Or is it?

And well, I find that admirable.  I think if you're really behind something like this you should be in it as a life goal. I have no gripes against you for that at all.

Unfortunately there's a lot of kids here who are wasting their time and money gambling on something that's patently incompatible with modern society and culture. Not only that, but the very fundamental infrastructure and programming of bitcoin "1.0" is absurd and poorly thought out.

In fact I belive in an eventual viable crypto-currency, WITH global adoption.  I'm actually a supporter of a One World Government (I actually believe we already have one by defacto standards of operation) and obviously there will need to be an currency that transcends geography.

Bitcoin 1.0 isn't it though, and I feel it's useless to continue wasting kids time with it.

Though it sure is cool as hell to pay off a bit of your gaming rig with it, I'll agree. :)

Before I go on, I'd just like to say that I generally agree with you in the short run. In the long run, nobody knows.


I'm not sure these are "facts". I stumbled upon bitcoin while google/wiki surfing and didn't know anything about these scandals. There are probably others like me who will find out and get interested. So to say that "no-one" would care about bitcoin because it isn't newsworthy and/orwithout these scandals would not be factual, even if I'm the only one :)

Secondly, your claim of 3 months of media exposure doesn't seem quite right. Checking up on these scandals, indicate that the first (Silkroad) only started in late Jun so it's only one month of real media exposure. Unless you mean some other scandals apart from the 3 you specified?

Thirdly, claiming there's "nothing left" to get attention of the corporate media is indulging in crystal-ball gazing isn't it? Who knows if next week some celebrity stumble would upon this (maybe while trying to get a discreet drug fix) and decides to hype it up to his/her 100,000 twitter followers and  200,000 facebook fans? ;)

So fact of the matter is that your "facts" aren't that factual as well.


This I would agree fully excerpt the jump the shark part since I'm not sure what you mean by that, sorry, I'm not American/British.
However, looking before Jun, I'd say there was already a slow crawl upwards in price, the current downtrend seems to be simply market correction and likely to settle somewhat higher than before in the next couple of months if I may dare to speculate, around the $9~$12 range perhaps.


I'd disagree since there is no data to prove that there are less real humans investing into the system. While forum registrations is not a hard metric, it does serve as an indication that more newcomers are getting into this.

For the decline part, as I mentioned earlier, for the time being, it can only be described as a correction. In the long term, nobody knows. If you could predict markets with such certainty, then you would be making bilions elsewhere, not wasting time here ;)



I've not checked out every single listing but I would agree that this economy is key to the long term viability of Bitcoin. However for any market to thrive, there must be enough users. So the more people who get Bitcoins and ironically maybe the lower the dollar value, the more likely an economy will bloom since people would want to be able to use their existing bitcoin in exchange for something. Once the volume of trade starts to grow internally, things should start to snowball at accelerating rate.

There are many smart people thinking of things that could be bought for bitcoins so I wouldn't be so sure that none of the come up with a killer idea that will help propel the bitcoin economy into long term sustainability.



As shown, not all of what you claim are facts and ultimately facts are also subjected to interpretation :)

The "kids" who "wasted" their time and money in '09, '10, and early 11 with this could now buy an entire data center with the proceeds.  The exact same arguments were made then, are made now and I guarantee you will be made until bitcoin either becomes mainstream or disappears.  Check back in a year to see which is more likely.  At some point those arguments could all be right, or they will all be proven wrong.  IMO there's no reason to believe the point is now.

Developing a $ to BTC exchange and mining pools also seemed like a dumb waste of effort at the time.  And look at the income they're generating today.

Those being negative then have nothing to show for their efforts.  The ones taking risks and initiative, however, are pretty well off.

I see this thread has been moved to Speculation. It should have been moved to Facts  :D

Hypothetically well off, since in reality it's difficult to pull much value out of the system without totally crashing the entire market a la the Gox hacking which was only like what, 200k BTC that got sold, and crashed the whole fucking thing to $0.00? Not only that, but that's not 200k odd BTC that sold at the then $20 price-tag, no.  The lions share of that sell off was had at absurdly low values.  If I'm not mistaken I think more than half of it started being sold around $4-.01c.  So the argument that there is outrageous wealth in the bitcoin market is patently false.  At most they can hope the scheme keeps bringing in new blood so they can progressively cash out, just like all the miners do. But they certainly aren't going to be pawning off massive amounts of BTC and buying a new Porsche in a day, or even a week...or month, or year at these prices/market depth!

The reality is that yes, they are making a nice hefty RELATIVE profit on their original speculation, but so are the Amway founders and VitaLife and all the other founders/early adopters of other multi-level marketing schemes that very closely resemble what bitcoin exists as today.

Even if new forum registrations could be used as some sort of correlation to Bitcoin's overall interest, you would need to also know the number of inactive accounts to draw any sort of conclusion.  We can only see the inflow but none of the outflow and it would be foolish to assume everyone who has joined this forum continues to be actively interested.

What?  That's crazy talk son. Correlation == Causation. Always.

Bitcoin Forum accounts come in, Market Value soars to new heights.

Never a miscommunication.

That is quite true, so either way there's appears still to be no conclusive data to indicate if the number of real human participants are increasing/stagnant/decreasing.

However, anecdotal evidence suggests increase. For a while I was quite puzzled by the surge of interest in used 5xxx series ATI cards in my local hardware forums. Then there were vendors telling me about odd buying patterns with people snatching up as many as 8~10 pieces of aging 5xxx inventory they never thought they could get rid of at decent pricing. This coincide with the Bitcoin media coverage since late Jun as well.

Now since the overall network hashrate is increasing, with no real significant breakthrough in hashing hardware for the past six months or so, it would seem to imply that the overall number of participants joining is greater than those leaving.

Miners do not bring value to bitcoin.  In fact miners actually drive the price steadily downward without the influx of new money equaling current market price * 7200 per 24hrs. Since that is very unlikely to continue, we'll just see a steady bleeding of value as miners get desperate and keep selling off coins to cover costs and recoup investment, just as we're seeing. As I said, BTC has been on a slow burn decline ever since Gox opened back up.

Miners are into bitcoin to profit in USD, except the zealots/speculators who hoard, and they're neither hurting nor helping bitcoin.

Bottom line, miners mean jack shit to the value of bitcoin as a "currency" or even a speculative vehicle, since the amount of bitcoins introduced to the market daily remains the same.

It's true that Bitcoin was suddenly thrust into the media spotlight as a result of several co-ordinated blog posts. It is also true that a lot of speculators charged in and bought up bitcoins through exchanges as a way of making a quick buck. Prices went through the roof as a consequence and the story of that bubble sparked more media coverage in either a virtuous or vicious circle depending on your point of view. Virtuous if you wanted a quick buck, vicious if you were hoping to get more of the economic infrastructure (like EPOS, instant transactions etc) in place before it went mainstream.

The media will grab anything and everything that will help it draw attention to itself. There are a multitude of ways that bitcoin will be able make news in the future as others earlier in this topic have shown. This news could be good "Synaptic becomes first Bitcoin Billionaire - buys island in 10 minutes". Or it could be bad, see previous headline  ;)


I disagree with this viewpoint. I think that Bitcoin has gone through a taste of mainstream attention and the services built on it were caught entirely by surprise. The fundamental operation of the currency was utterly unfazed. Lessons have been learned, and further developments are incorporating those insights. However, it takes time to develop new and improved code and so this is a quiet time for Bitcoin while more solid infrastructure is built.


Here you have made a very interesting observation. In my experience Bitcoin is currently seen as a currency speculation or medium term investment vehicle (3-5 years). What is desperately needed by the economy is for more people to spend their bitcoins on goods and services just like they do with other currencies. But this flies in the face of why many people bought them in the first place: to sit on them for the long term and reap the reward. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin economy will not grow with this attitude unless first time buyers continuously arrive and purchase bitcoins. In order to reap that reward a fraction of the money investors have set aside to buy BTCs must be spent on stuff that those investors need on a regular basis. So instead of buying a new set of headphones with local currency, Bitcoin investors should attempt to seek out a vendor willing to sell them in bitcoins. The price should be about the same and the overall economy will grow just a little bit leading to an increased in the relative value of your earliest position.


I agree that Amazon has not embraced Bitcoin just yet. Microsoft are a little slow to the table here, and perhaps Apple could have made more of an effort. However other large organisations are taking an interest, particularly those dealing with large sums of paper cash. (It costs a lot to securely move cash to and from the bank every day). The benefits that Bitcoin can bring to large organisations are manyfold, and anything that reduces operating costs is generally seen as a good thing. But, no-one is going to start adopting Bitcoin without seeing solid proof that it works in the mainstream. And getting there is really, really hard.


All discussion about the future is by definition speculation, unless it is based entirely in mathematics when it becomes a fact. Bitcoin is based entirely in mathematics.

And in other news, flat trading on the BTC Exchanges has led to rife trolling and infighting on the interwebs. One trader is said to have assaulted another upon hearing something about his mother's head going in unison with past volatility. The resulting brawl on to the street led to excessive intercourse between the parties with onlookers recoiling in horror. The local police would have intervened but no-one it seems was willing to fund the contract to so due to the local economy focus on mining.....

Exactly.

It really depends on your POV, classic cup half empty or half full kind of thing. Your assumption is that nothing is going to change so yes, in that situation what you describe could happen.

While I agree it is a likely scenario, it also means ignoring the fact there are people, even as you mentioned some working on a Bitcoin ATM and such, trying to change the landscape and therefore the market. Once somebody puts something out there that is sufficiently attractive paid for by Bitcoins, the economy could get kickstarted properly. For example in your proposed scenario when the value has gone down that miners start selling off to recoup, they may end up spending it within the economy for things that are worth more than the cash they would get, especially after taking into account the charges in getting cash transferred back. In many cases, it just takes that one single change to tip the scales and make what looks like a dog become a star.

Furthermore miners who have no intention of spending originally, may be educated and convinced that by spending some of their hoard in the bitcoin market, they are only helping to drive up the value of their hoard.

Again, no bitcoin economy is coming because bitcoin serves no purpose that other services haven't already filled.

Bitcoin makes a cheap payment processor?  So does Dwolla, and there's 75% less bullshit involved.

Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation? No-one gives a shit. There's better stores of value in real tangible assets, like gold.

Bitcoin is secure/anonymous whatever other super-fantastic crypto-bullcrap? Again, no-one in the public gives a shit. There's zero value proposition relative to anything bitcoin is built on.

There's just simply no place in the real people's economy for this little hobby experiment.

Shhhh its a coded message. jk

if a person is not good at english (even if it is their first language) Doesn't mean they don't have useful information.  I'm not saying this post is accurate.

No one can know where the bitcoin market will go, I expect it will keep with the pattern pointed out somewhere, and spike again in a month or so.

Oh, of course someone can have something of value to say even if they aren't all that articulate, or even knowledgable. In this case, though, his/her information is useless (really, it's an opinion, not information in the strict sense), and my answer was to his/her suggestion that he/she was in any way capable of educating me or anyone else on this forum.

And, for the record, English is my second language - or at least my other language.

Cheers

Is that why you take every opportunity to be the resident spell/grammar checker?

There are more useful pursuits, hombre.

Dude you nor anyone else can predict the future with 100%accuracy. Thus your claim although you cited sources is still S :) P ;) E :D C ;D U >:( L :( A :o T 8) I :P O :-* N.

It's actually a well educated hypothesis; One that in all likely-hood will continue to bare out as I've laid forth. Look, even since I started posting BTC has lost 9.5% of it's 24hr value. There will of course be a bump, but then another gradual slow burn fall as has been happening ever since the Gox recovery.

The signs are there for anyone to see.  This market isn't really as volatile as the speculators would love it to be, at all.  At it's been predictable since the bubble began. It's really not a mystery to anyone that understands these basic truths.

Synaptic, great post, and you laid the facts out very nicely. There seems to be few on this forum who actually see the truth about what is going on with bitcoin.

The price just went into a huge bubble and is just deflating (or what you call bitcoin shrinking). There is really no reason why it should be vauled so much higher than it was just a few months back.

Anyway, my question to you is where do you see the price of bitcoin stabilizing at?

Side note: You ought to tone down on the use of "no-one", "nobody", "nothing". While you might have a point, using words like that just makes you sound like a frothing fanatic. And again to provide the minimum singular needed to defeat the "no-one" claim, I for one became interested in bitcoin precisely because of its anonymous nature. I'm sure I'm not the only one.


If only somebody could get some marketing material to a few mafia rings, drug cartels and such. It would probably be in their interest (and within their capabilities) to make bitcoin viable :D

I really can't see the point of engaging with this kind of agenda driven dishonesty.

Then shut up.

so what you are saying is we should all sell,
and let the exchanges and GODMODE (the guy with 10,000+BTC) have the empty bag all to themselves?

seems like it could work.

Bitcoin already transacends geography and allows for transferring value without requiring the world to switch to a centralised command structure. This is already in place, and years ahead of anything global diplomatic committee can come up with.

You seem to see bitcoin as a company/entity that tries to displace all other currencies. That's simply not the goal. Don't believe the libertarian crackpots on this forum, this is *not* a political faction. This is simply open source distributed culture spreading to value exchange systems. Just like operating systems like Linux/BSD broke the Microsoft monoculture, systems like Bitcoin break the money transfer "monoculture".

For now I see Bitcoin as the perfect payment method for international online jobs. Someone in India could write a program for you, and you can pay for it instantly, without having to worry about banking options available for you/him and the fees associated with that. Internet connectivity is enough.

But if you rather wait for the "one global currency" that's OK too. But there's nothing wrong with kids being enthusiastic about it. They're usually more idealistic and sooner see the advantages of new technology even in its baby stages. And it's pointless trying to discourage them from that, they'll just see you as a old sob that defends the status quo. And they're not wasting their time, at least they're learning useful skills instead of watching tv... :)

+1

Overall, I agree with 99% of Synaptic's analysis, and I especially agree with a few of the other posters' comments about there not being enough criticism and dissent in these forums.  Right now, Bitcoins, for all their technical glory (which, truly, is admirable), don't seem to do anything useful to any appreciable extent other than allow earlier-fools to relieve themselves of their BTC holdings by selling them to incoming greater-fools...  That's true of almost everything I've read *except* for the international transactions part.  I'm sensitive to that part (having lived in or having family ties to four or five different countries and about to move again), and I can *definitely* see the value proposition in near-frictionless transactions across borders where you don't have to trust anyone along the way.  The fees and hassle to do this in the normal banking system nowadays are truly outrageous.  If no alternative to Bitcoin ever succeeds, international transactions are perhaps the only thing I'd ever use Bitcoins for (even then, I'd use BTC for the whole of 10-20 minutes as an intermediate currency, and it's not hard to see how having to go through a million intermediaries to do this might kill even *that* use case).  But I really hope that an alternative to Bitcoin does emerge, one that isn't drowning in libertarian/anarcho-capitalist kool-aid and does not shoot itself in the foot with fringe, unworkable economics.

Right. But which of those is a *technical* issue with bitcoin? You're too conflating fringe political motives of some forum members with the technical direction (and usefulness) of the project. No alternative software has to be introduced to tone down the loonies, as there is no license agreement that says "you have to be libertarian to use this".

It's not really your fault either. I really wish this forum was distanced from the project page somehow, and a simple "user/merchant/developer support" forum took its place. No political or economical speculation talk at all. Sometimes I feel fucked as a developer as I'm genuinely trying to help people and don't really want to be associated with the crap this forum has become.

Why do the short term and transitory effects of news coverage affect Bitcoin's long term success?

I can't believe some of the things being said in this thread. OP makes a detailed explanation of what happened, is happening, and will happen to the economy and you guys are flaming/trolling his thread.

All of you guys need to stop living in your ideal dream world where Bitcoin will last forever. Fact is, it's not going to. OP is just pointing out the fact and bringing reality to us.

But back to the question in hand.

What's the connection between the trailing off of the initial media coverage of Bitcoin and the long term prospects of Bitcoin?

My take on this would be that the only reason bitcoin went up in value was because of the media coverage it got at one point. I agree with this because even though I heard about bitcoin earlier, I did not look into it in more detail until I saw an article on yahoo.com. I would also say that most of the hype and why the price shot to $30 dollars was all the media coverage around that time.

Now that bitcoin got media coverage and there is probably not many more reasons to give it as much media coverage it will just be an unknown hobby currency and die out. This is all speculation as who knows what media coverage it will get in the future.

I guess media coverage is a way of free advertising. Without advertising most products will go unknown and never sell. Same goes with bitcoin. You need to hype it, dump it, lol. 

But what can we learn about the long term prospects of Bitcoin from this episode? Does this tell us anything about where Bitcoin is going to be in 2 years? I'm attempting to deconstruct Synaptic's OP bit by bit here, and show what a pile of meaningless speculation it is.

I believe there is a saying that share prices does not reflect the performance of the company, only the public expectations of it. So I doubt this episode tells us anything significant about the future of Bitcoin that wasn't obvious before. The fundamental remains, there must be a sufficiently vibrant economy (be it games, services, drugs or porn) in which bitcoin is a preferred currency. Otherwise, it will die off just as Synaptic believes.

Sure, if a vibrant Bitcoin economy doesn't develop in the long term then Bitcoin will stagnate in the long term. That's self evident. Synaptic was saying that because the press interest has died down after the initial surge that's proof that Bitcoin won't prosper long term. That's not self evident. That's meaningless waffle.

There might be slight practical issues with logging on to Tor from a prison cell.

I think he was having problems bringing his point across due to his English and mannerism. The way I see it, he's trying to say that the price increase in bitcoin was due to media hype and there is nothing he could imagine that would drive it up again, because there is no economy to back up the bitcoin currency and the declining price since the hype is his alleged evidence. While I quite disagree with the point about not possibly being newsworthy again, the latter about not having much of an economy to back bitcoin is unfortunately relatively true at this point.

Until the community or somebody can kickstart something that uses bitcoin in significant volume relative to the generation, the long term outlook is not that bright barring drastic changes in the socio-economic environment.

Well, at least the entries on the trade page (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade) from the wiki seems to be growing nicely:

(according discussion at https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26047 (https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26047))

Personally I find the possibility to buy all the stuff from amazon.com with Bitcoins through spendbitcoins.com as the greatest step forward recently. I mean: what more can you ask for? Everybody asking me what you can do with Bitcoins was pretty impressed to hear that you can shop at amazon with it.

Granted, it's through a gift code, but it is at the current market rate without any fees!

Unfortunately this is similar to forum memberships. Unless somebody is checking the links periodically and removing dead entries (no longer accepting bitcoins or closed, doesn't work or whatever), it won't prove that a economy is growing around bitcoin.


This is a good sign though, the next question is then how many people actually uses it and how long will it be sustainable. It would be good if the community supports this effort by paying exclusively using bitcoin on Amazon. It will drive up the volume and it would really be a coup if Amazon starts accepting bitcoin directly.

Playing the devil's advocate, Synaptic would probably rubbish it off as clones created by the diehard 10,000~15000 natives ;)

So I'll give up on the Synaptic's first point. Xephan, I appreciate your points, but I'm trying to pin Synaptic down here like I'd try to pin down someone on Fox News peddling tripe.

Next point.


How can you predict the long term success of Bitcoin on the basis of a short term transient market move the first time it became widely known?

I'm not predicting the long term success of bitcoin I'm telling you that the market value relative to other currencies will continue to shrink until it reaches it's highest sustainable point somewhere below $10 and above $0.01. You're just twisting my observations relative to your own worthless antithetical agenda.

Bitcoin can be "successful" by a number of measures, yet still have little to no value in real currencies.

Your OP starts with "The long term trend for bitcoin value is contraction, not expansion". You then precede to give evidence that has nothing to do with the long term.


You're asserting this, but with what evidence? The long term contraction/expansion of Bitcoin depends on the developments in the Bitcoin economy over the next couple of years, not press coverage and market moves over its first couple of months. What evidence for long term contraction is there?

Any valuation above relative parity with USD/EUR/AUD/GBP etc. is extremely suspect as there are absolutely zero real reasons for it to be above parity.

A number of people have mentioned how great BTC are for international currency transport and exchange and they're correct, though this use doesn't require any valuation higher than relative parity with the strongest currencies; In fact it still works perfectly fine at 10:1 or even 100:1, the only reason for it to be higher is greedy miners hoarding to artificially restrict supply.

It's just patently absurd to say that BTC has any value above the strong fiat currencies that have the GDP of ENTIRE FUCKING NATIONS behind their value, and bitcoin has absolutely jack shit. The only reason for it to hold parity is for conveniences sake anyway.

So why did I even suggest anything above parity in the first place, say, below $10?  Because bitcoin speculators are still idiots and the die hards will still inject paycheck after paycheck into the market hoping to extract some small profit.  So my wild variance between $0.01 and $10 is solely because I honestly have no idea how tenacious these idiots are, or exactly how many of them are stupid enough to continue to artificially inflate the value long term.

But one thing is certain and that is that the super-fantastic cryptoararchojerkoffism inherent to the design of bitcoins is a FAR fucking cry from the economic value of the GDP of motherfucking NATIONS that floats their fiat value to where it exists today, and that all the bitcoiners who believe otherwise are fucking fools. liberal vulgarity included for emphasis

Another Godlike assertion, but no evidence whatsoever.

To repeat. How did you arrive at those numbers?

And after you've answered this question, I'll repeat the other questions that you've carefully avoided. One at a time though.

I've learned to simply ignore the meandering political ramblings (e.g., Atlas & co), and I agree that this by itself doesn't affect the project in any meaningful way (except, perhaps, scaring off more serious investors/contributors).  It's just annoying, and if the libertarians simply produced a product that I could use without having to have my ear chewed off with their world-domination blather, I'd be perfectly happy to use it.

The portion that to me is really a shame is how, on top of the technically beautiful system for solving double-spending and building consensus on a network that lacks trust, has been layered a cultlike devotion to deflationary/goldbug economics that I *can't* extricate myself from.  I and many others have certainly argued why elsewhere, but principally, deflation seems to me like it will choke trade and investment, and keep Bitcoin from growing into the truly useful backbone for worldwide transactions that it could in principle become.  At best, I see things stabilizing long-term to a low trade volume that's an unhappy equilibrium between hoarders and people who are no longer able/willing to hold their coins; on top of this might piggyback transactions like the international transfer I described that simply use BTCs as a 10-20 minute intermediary.  At worst, I see the project dying off because of this.  This is why the economics that's built into Bitcoin, and not just the technical issues, *do* affect the project.

For the record, what I think (and hope) will actually happen is that some other Bitcoin 2.0 with better economics comes online and outcompetes the current implementation.  Presumably, such a virtual currency would be technically similar to Bitcoin, so that the effort already invested into complementary projects, like your Bitcoin-qt client (which I really respect and hope succeeds) or the exchanges, can be leveraged easily and not be lost.  I think the technical underpinnings of Bitcoin, and their potential to change the world if implemented more sensibly, are simply too good to just die off without them being picked up by someone else.


+1

Another great post. I was in the middle of writing a flamepost against flug when this came in, and when I read it I was soothed and deleted it.  You've obviously given some thought to your position and have good insight. It's both surprising to me and also unsurprising that so many here both completely misunderstand and vehemently defend the absolutely absurd economic underpinnings of Bitcoin.

Again, I think there is a great opportunity for a crypto-currency to arise and serve us well, but Bitcoin 1.0 is not it, and the sooner it dies it's deserved death the better.

And to get a bit meta here, there have been other great posts in this thread, both defending and criticizing Bitcoin that I'd like to respond to, but the good posts are lengthy and take me a great deal of time to respond to, ESPECIALLY when they cross quote large portions of text, and I simply haven't had the time to do that yet.

However, I'll spend less time responding to morons like flug who have very little to contribute through finger pointing and "debate by attrition" and more time trying to respond to those who have taken some time to put thought and effort to their replies.  

I'll just say:

Did you even bother to read the rest of the post?

Idiot...

Okay Bob. May I call you Bob? I like to call you Bob.

Here's the deal. Bitcoin has no inherent value. It is a merchantilistic item of trade for whom people are willing to pay a price. The total of all those prices willing to be paid somewhat constitute the market value demand side. Then you have the market value supply side, which gets defined by the amount of bitcoins available for sale. This supply side may grow or shrink here or there a little bit, depending on what the miners and/or long-term investors had for breakfast. Do you have any idea of what would happen to the value of bitcoins if just one large investor decided it would be a riot to just purchase 20mio bitcoins for a dollar? Even if you never had more than twice the 200k bitcoin adaptors we have as of now, you'd have no more than 2.5 bitcoins available per person on average - and every time those guys like to make a 100$ transaction, they will either have to buy more bitcoins or drive up the price to $40, at which point the large investor could just attempt to slowly release 1mio of his coins (thus doubling the supply side, lowering the price to $20) just to receive his initial investment back, while still still sitting on 19mio more bitcoins!

Now look at the amount of ongoing daily transactions, the amount of people doing those transactions, and the amount of possible large investors. They exceed $100, 400k people and 1 by far!

So go ahead, keep pushing your agendas - but the only absurd idiot in this forum is you. All the more so for calling people names, while actually attempting to justify a realistic sub-parity dollar denominated bitcoin valuation on the grounds of openly rigged GDP data, which is dollar denominated by nature to begin with! God be with you if we ever saw a large USD crash. You could consider yourself lucky if you even were to receive a single bitcoin for your monthly dollar paycheck then.

Now please do yourself and all of us a huge favor - go educate someplace else.

No, you can call me Synaptic.  Why the fuck would you call me Bob, Mr. Cunt? Do you mind if I call you Mr. Cunt?

I almost can't even begin to approach the HUGE fallacious logic in your post.  Your numbers don't even make any sense!  In fact, I can't be bothered and hopefully some other poster who cares to correct you will do so, because I'm happy to let the rest of the audience try to make sense of your stupidity themselves. I'm sure you'll attack me for that. HURR, SEE YOU CAN'T DO IT HURR.

One glaringly hilarious number you threw out is 400k people?

LOL... I'm not even going to ask how you can justify that number, because anyone who understands Bitcoin knows exactly where you assumed to pull that number from and will know how full of shit you are.

Yes, I did read the rest of the post. How did you arrive at those numbers?

It's called volatility. You are talking in such short terms. Come back and talk to us all when a year has gone by and you've let your hypothesis play out over the long term and not in such a short term period of 24hours.

...

What's called volatility, volatility?  Or the opposite of volatility, predictability? Are you saying predictability is volatility?

Anyone who believes that this bubble was caused by magical "volatility" and not entirely predictable cause and effect is merely shortsighted, or mentally deficient. I remember quite clearly the MASSIVE amount of total MORONS during the height of the bubble that were outright LAUGHING at everyone saying it was a bubble, and all circle-jerking all over each other about how the growth was going to continue to be exponential and take it up to $100/BTC by September and other assorted bullshit.

RIGHT TO THE MOON!

Well...obviously those of us who saw it for exactly what it was/is aren't trying to sooth our deflated egos with this "volatility" mantra.

The fact is the Bitcoin market has NEVER been a volatile market. There have been extremely clear causal sources for the markets exceedingly predictable movements, going all the way back to April when the mining craze started to heat up.

Thank you Bob for making it so very easy to just as well ignore you since you obviously don't care to explain any of your absurd statements, nor care to elaborate on why people who choose to give you counter-arguments are incorrect. Also calling an official gold medal winner at an international mind sports olympiade stupid is... well, mildly ironic and kind of funny actually to say the least. 8)

Btw, how does a dick in your mouth taste like? Seems like you've been giving the CIA or some other dollar-affin wannabe think tank blowjobs all along.

OK, let's start with this. At USD/BTC=1, the total value of bitcoins would currently be $6m. What are the pressures limiting the total value of bitcoins at $6m? What's to stop the total value of bitcoins going to $600m? or $6bn?

HAHAHAHA,

Oh again, this place never seems to disappoint.


LOL.  "gold medal winner at an international mind sports olympiade"

Lovely. Just lovely.

You look at it from a naively optimistic point of view, as that of a child imagining what a superhero might eat for breakfast.

The correct way to approach it is "At 1:1 USD/BTC, which places the total Bitcoin market cap at $6m of value, what market forces produce enough value to support that price?"

The answer as it's been for the past 3.5 months is hype. As the hype has faded and reality sets in and the price deflates as I'm explaining to you it will, even at $6m of value the answer is: Practically Nothing.

See, Bitcoins basically need the equivalent of a "GDP" to sustain it's value.  There is no "GDP" behind Bitcoins now, nor will any "GDP" be growing within 6 months, or a year, or likely ever, for all the reasons I've listed across many threads over the past 2 months.

But I'll turn it over to you and that other genius that started posting:

Given a 1:1 parity with the dollar, what in all of the Gods' Hells impart $6m of market value?

Don't spout off bullshit about people paying what they think it's worth: that's speculation, and speculation isn't value...

No, Synaptic, let's stay with the same post and examine that, for the sake of clarity.


What are you saying here exactly? That for international currency transfer and exchange we don't need a BTC value of more than $1? That's a total of $6m?

Explain.

Slow down a bit......

GDP wise, there is no nation ;)

But ignoring that, BTC has generated economic activity around it's existence. You mightn't place much value on it, but people creating the various sites for trade and exchange of varying goods and services is what gives bitcoin it's economy, and that's an important point of this whole exercise, people are essentially working and producing in exchange for BTC, essentially giving it value.

All currencies start out as nothing, it's the work of the people behind the nations currency that gives it value. You can argue that bitcoin is over valued, but certainly not of no value. I don't think it unreasonable that bitcoin has generated more then 6 million usd of economic activity by now.

Look I'm getting really fucking tired of your inability to comprehend the very words you're reading...

just because the last bitcoin sold for $13.5 does not mean bitcoin is worth $13.5 x 6million. only say 10,000 would say at $13.5, most would sell far below that.

That's why I said "GDP," as a turn of phrase.

I'm not saying there's no Bitcoin economy AT ALL, just not enough of an economy to justify anywhere NEAR the current trade price, now or in the near future.

Hence, my entire premise that the market value will continue to contract as the artificial inflation subsides and takes BTC back to where it belongs.

This isn't about you.

Well I'm sorry that I have no interest in throughly explaining myself to someone who doesn't understand what I've already written. I hope that someone else wouldn't mind "translating" or elaborating for you.

"So rather than blaming BTC for being priced too high in USD, blame the Federal Reserve for inflating the money supply. The devaluation of USD in the last 3 years alone has caused BTC to double in value against USD."

LOL, I love how you can wholly debase your entire post merely by following up with this little gem.

Hilarious.

Apart from that, you fail to address the fact that the demand for BTC now is based solely on hype as I've made clean many times already. You erroneously assume that I don't understand WHY bitcoin even has a market price. I understand better than the lions share of posters on this entire forum EXACTLY why bitcoin enjoys it's present market value. I also understand that the valuation is artificial and doomed to steadily contract as the hype wanes and the bag holders are leftto wallow in their poor investment vehicle.

And I don't blame the Fed for anything. Though I don't appreciate their monetary policy, I do realize they know much better than I or anyone else on this backwater forum how to run an economy the size of the United States. Fuck, people here don't even understand how a piddly little market like bitcoin functions, yet purport to understand how to solve all of the world's financial problems with their little hobby.

Just to put the icing on the cake though, USD inflation means absolutely FUCK ALL in relation to BTC anything, but I appreciate your ignorance.

Oh great master! As you have shown through 13 pages of thread, your wisdom of the things to come exceeds every mean known to man. So please have mercy on us blissful trifling souls and tell us what to do!

Should I sell all my coins now, while I can?

Sure, go ahead.

EDIT: Then again, maybe you should buy more.

Nah, I won't. Let's play this "Ponzi scheme" a little longer. C'mon, 60,000 accounts on Mt. Gox?! Any decent stock has more investors. I think we can bring in a million more people before it crashes.

Seriously though, with all the uncertainties here in Europe and in the US, all it takes for a lot of people to lose faith in their currency and pump at least some of their money into bitcoins are headlines like
"Republicans c***block debt ceiling compromise! USA defaults on 3-month bonds!"
or
"Financial aid package for Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Italy costs x trillion €, driving inflation up 10%!"

If you can then cleverly convince people to put their money in bitcoins, it will take off. Just like the bucket of shit you wish to promote or cigarettes became the de-facto currency in post-WWII-Germany.

Your blind faith in the weakness of world economies is cute, yet still infantile.

Fortunately the world financial markets aren't dying or in danger of imminent catastrophic collapse. Indeed, the developed world will continue plodding onwards just as it has for hundreds of years, allowing even the lowest classes some of the highest standards of living in the world, with plenty to eat, drink and be merry about.

And diehard bitcoiners will lube up for another wank with sugar-plum visions dancing in their silly little minds, of fire and brimstone bearing down upon fiat windmills...

Let's me see here...

It seems that in order to make OP's assertion valid, one must simply rephrase "The long term trend for bitcoin value is contraction, not expansion." as "The long term trend for fiat/bitcoin exchange rates is contraction, not expansion."

See, we no longer talking about bitcoin's value--only about the ability of market makers (like MtGox crew, etc) to maintain fiat/bitcoin current exchange rates for more than a month or two. OP is right, bitcoin's true value is WAY BELOW current exchange rates due to bitcoin not having any economy to call Home. So, stop worrying about the exchange rates that market makers are feeding you every day. Instead, start offering your bitcoins to merchants... Let's see if they do value BTC more than their local fiat currencies.

Absolutely. You've summarized quite accurately.

Now, my OPINION is that BTC will never find a use with the wider public because it's "advantages" are really quite meaningless to your average consumer, and CERTAINLY don't outweigh the glut of inconveniences inherent to it.

But what's not opinion is that the exchange rate is massively overvalued and is now headed down to a more accurate valuation as the hype continues to subside.

If the price strictly doubled every month since October 2010 (a month after data begins), the price would be above $31 today. Which is *almost* correct. If we experienced 80% gains monthly we'd have a price of $12 today. My data/calcs:

2010-10       .06      .06
2010-11       .12      .11
2010-12       .24      .19
2011-01       .48      .35
2011-02       .96      .63
2011-03      1.92     1.13
2011-04      3.84     2.04
2011-05      7.68     3.67
2011-06     15.36     6.61
2011-07     30.72    11.90

None of what you listed has anything to do with the Fed, and everything to do with Congress, the Senate, and the overbearing multi-nationals. Get a grip.

EDIT: I should clarify I didn't mean to suggest that the Fed run the US economy, I should have said "Manage interest rates and inflation relative to the economic decisions of the US government."

SECOND EDIT: Contrary to the prevailing fool's wisdom, the Fed is entirely beholden to the US Government and if anyone bothered to vote in our elections for candidates with integrity you might see a different result. It matters not about all the BS about the Fed being a private bank and whatever the hell else. If you voted in honest candidates you'd get honest monetary policy. Deal with it and quit bitching about it. Bitcoin certainly isn't going to change a goddamn thing about it.

It is opinion.  The only thing we know for sure is that their are offers and bids in the high thirteens right now. Everything else is opinion.  Value is what a willing buyer and seller agree on. 

Please edit your post daily to reflect the dropping prices.

And by "not opinion", I'm assuming you meant that "it's a fact"?... If so, then I concur: all of the shelves with fiat currencies have been emptied out; only the shelves with overripened "bananas" still remain. If only bitcoin miners could survive on bananas, we'd be fine!

As far as BTC finding its use with the wider public, you and I are of a different opinion. You see, there's still hope that miners would eventually realize that without spending, there can never be a deflation in the deflationary "by design" economy. In order to get from 21,000,000BTCs (monetary base) to 2,100,000,000,000,000BTCs (expected total money supply), all of 21,000,000BTCs must be constantly exchanging hands (and the more hands the better). Miners hoarding bitcoins is equivalent to the central banks (in inflationary economies) raising the minimum reserve requirements of their member banks (or bitcoin users, in our case), thus reducing the available money supply.

As for bitcoin advantages, perhaps you should try looking at the bitcoin network as the best-in-class accounting system/ledger of who owes what to whom. For example, what stops one neighbor (a computer buff) from agreeing with another neighbor (a landscaping business owner) to exchange their skills/services for bitcoins, rather than for local fiat currency? Bitcoins are perfect for that type of contracts.

If only we knew for sure that those were the real bids/offers, and not the market makers themselves trying to maintain a certain profit level by simply massaging the numbers inside their database. Do you really have trust in the unregulated market makers?

But the point is that fiat currencies aren't evil, serve their purpose just fine and have for many hundreds of years and likely will for a hundred years to come. Do some currencies hyper-inflate? Sure do, and then they correct and recover. And it's not the fact that a currency can be inflated that makes fiat "evil," it's that there are corrupt governments, and Bitcoin isn't going to do a single fucking thing to remedy the fact that people allow corrupt governments to exist.

In fact, the motherfucking BITCOIN economy/exchange is more corrupt than the US economy and the FED right now!

If I want to buy right now, I know what I have to pay. If I want to sell right now, I know what I have to charge.  If the volumes are high, the price will move to the next best offer/bid. You are right that the market depth chart is not completely reliable, but for small amounts, it doesn't hardly matter at all.

Buyers may think its overvalued and sellers think it's undervalued. They meet in the middle just the way they are supposed to if they want to transact now. otherwise they bide their time and take their chances. Both sides.  

I think this is probably a bit TOO conspiratorial, even for how full of shit the exchanges are.  What is for certain is that the people who run the exchanges, as well as the bitcoin aristocra....I mean "early adopters," are in total and complete control of the markets as long as people continue to buy into bitcoin.

Fortunately regular people are beginning to move past the hype and not throwing their paychecks into such a bullshit scheme anymore.

Many don't recover. they are dead forever. Confederate dollars, for example.

]

Or the Reichsmark, etc.

But did the underlying economy, people, families, businesses just disappear with them?  No.  They just started using a different currency.

That's why I don't care at all what happens to the Dollar, the Euro, whatever. Doesn't fucking matter. Life goes on. Cycles happen. Humanity learns, grows.

And we don't need an alternative currency run by a bunch of amateurs to do it.

Fiat currencies are not evil, but their money supply is out of people's control. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a currency of the people by the people. Wouldn't you agree that voting with money is much more effective and efficient than voting with ballots or feet? (Money is fuel, so to speak.) If you control the money supply, you get to say what goes and what doesn't for whatever type of economy you are envisioning or trying to build. Having a choice is great, no?

Now, we just need to find a way to keep the market makers out of bitcoin economy... The stench is overbearing!

Negative. Every currency belonging to a democratically elected government is directly beholden to the populace. The point is that democratic populations are impotent and ineffectual at managing their own government and essentially deserve everything that they get coming to them.

Also, I'd much rather deal with the Dragon's Den on Wall Street and the Fat Cats in the Fed than the shithole excuses for monetary exchanges that belong to bitcoin and the Bitcoin Elite that hold the lions share of the entire currency among a tiny number of hands...

Don't delude yourself. Bitcoin is not a "currency" by the people for the people. It's a Multi-level Marketing scheme run by "Oligarchs" and market shysters.

I can empathize with the uneasiness of money supplies being controlled by central banks (even though, personally, I think the system works reasonably well most of the time).  I've posted some ideas on how to keep some of the "people-control" aspect of the money supply in Bitcoin without having to buy into the deflationary mindset here, and I'd love it if you or anyone else on this thread could spare a few minutes to comment:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=29252.0

Yes, it's up to the parties at each end of the exchange transaction to either accept or reject the market maker's price. However, this approach produces unrealistic expectations about the future of bitcoin. In addition, it offers nothing of value to the bitcoin network itself, as all trading activity occurs outside the bitcoin block chain, which means that there are no transaction fees to compensate miners for maintaining and protecting (from potential attacks by rogue nodes) the bitcoin network.

Yeah, it's interesting how the retarded bitcoining masses really don't even realize that so much of their bitcoin "economy" exists wholly within private databases...

It's just a fucking joke all around.

Henry Morton, the first president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, feared that Edison's lightbulb was "a fraud upon the public" and Marshall Ferdinand Fox called aeroplanes "interesting toys" with "no military value".

Maybe you have the balls to post your real name here, and be the Morton and Fox for the posterity.

I admire your persistence towards something you dislike so strongly.

I admire your inability to post a suitable rebuttal to the fact I expressed.

which facts ? only rants

Exactly, mostly angry swearing which show's a lot in the way of debate.

Would have to disagree with you on one thing...

Currency is beholden to those who issue it. So, if you let others (e.g. government, central bank, etc) to issue currency on your behalf, then it is beholden to them, not you. In bitcoin's case, although it is the miners who are the issuers of BTC, everyone can set up their own mining rig at any time. The biggest hurdle that must be overcome is miners believing that bitcoin is an investment asset. And that's why I'm here... to help them realize that bitcoin will die unless there are millions of transactions in the block chain daily.

Dude, being able to just flip a switch and print your own money is exactly why we have regulated monetary organization in the first place. It doesn't fucking matter that a central authority prints the money, it's still a proof-of-work instrument.

The issue that idiots have with inflationary currency is that they put such a high value on their work relative to everyone else. They feel that since their work was worth X in year A that it should be worth exactly X in year B, or more.  The problem they don't agree with is when the supporting economy can't sustain that value of work it must be devalued to keep the economy functioning.

Furthermore, inflation is a economic INCENTIVE to innovate, invent, and expand.  That's why I believe people who stash away cash and bitch about inflation deserve to have their money divested from them, because I believe everyone should always be looking for ways to actively improve theirs and other's financial situations.

I'm not suggesting that printing money is the same thing as issuing it. In bitcoin economy, the amount of money that can be printed is set at 21,000,000BTCs. Miners (a.k.a. central banks) only have the power to issue that money into the economy by putting their own bitcoin reserves into circulation; then it becomes the job of bitcoin users (a.k.a. member banks, or just banks) to circulate that money around the economy. The more the miners or users hoard their bitcoins, the harder it becomes for the producers to generate sales (hence, they will jack up their prices, and the economy will experience an inflation). As you can see, if miners/users want the economy to grow, they must keep spending.



I'd say that inflation is more of an economic incentive to imitate than to innovate/invent. Think about it, why should one focus on coming up with something new knowing that by spending less today--in order to copy an already successful invention--one will be able to rip the benefit of higher prices down the road? Essentially, in the inflationary economy, the innovator/inventor's hand always feeds the copycats. The key driver of innovation/invention has always been and always will be a potential increase in the number of innovative competitors.

I will pay 50 BTC to the person that locks up all those "I know all the world" people who obviously do not know "all the world" because if they did they figured that every second day another one opens another forum thread selling black paintings on how bad everything will be. I will pay another 50 BTC for the person that kills all of them!

(before someone comes to bad thoughts, I wont pay someone to kill someone else. That'd probably be illegal in most areas. However, some concentration camp playground where they could educate each other and let all others unharmed would be nice!)

Hey, lonely caller in the desert! What is your agenda, anyways? If you don't believe that there's a future for Bitcoin, get the hell out with your money, sell your rig and waste your leisure time on other forums. But why keep "warning" everybody about the impending doom?!

Aah, now I get it. You're just angry you got in "too late". But that's still assuming it's just a Ponzi scheme.

So why can't that "different currency" be Bitcoin? Oh, right. It's run by amateurs instead of pros. So how did the pros get pro? Right, they were born this way. I guess that's why the say "Bitcoin is still in its infancy". What you're predicting is, that the baby doesn't have a fridge's chance in Antarctica to survive and grow up. Call me naïve all you want, but I'd be rather that than pessimistic.

Yes, Bitcoin needs somewhat of an economy to back it. But how is that gonna happen? Typical chicken and egg problem. It has to start with speculation, because the speculators are the sort of people that are willing to take higher risks. And it is a very risky and volatile environment right now, I'll give you that. But for merchants to accept and deal in Bitcoin, all these things (exchanges, e-wallet services, escrow services, etc.) need to exist first and need to be secure first. The Mt. Gox hack will not happen again (at least not with Mt. Gox), people are learning from these very early mistakes and it costs a lot less now than to iron these issues out when it's bigger.

I see Bitcoin as an experiment and as such "failure is always an option". I will not have ruined my life if it fails and I will not be a millionaire if it succeeds. I'm just in it for the lulz. Why are you still here?

And one of those means are loans: the lifeline of an inflationary "by design" economy. With that kind of setup, anyone can take out a loan to finance the implementation of original/innovative or imitative ideas (regardless of their usefulness to the society). Even the law may not be able to block that implementation (like when the government itself decides to take out a loan for some stupid idea). As the result, the society creates more waste than wealth. And when a given idea doesn't materialize (i.e. brings losses, not profits), all that excessive money supply (created through loans) can disappear in the blink of an eye (like it did in the fall of 2008).

With bitcoin, the game is different. There are no loans, just payments. Hence, if you can't convince others (right now that's mostly techies) to pay for the implementation of your idea, you will never get it off the ground. Beautiful setup, isn't it?

It sounds like you're talking about today's fascism, (aka "crony" capitalism) rather than pure capitalism. If you are holding a Bitcoin, you're a capitalist (and not a "crony").


There's also savings, which in this context some people mistakenly call hoarding.

Yes, savings (hoarding) is part of the bitcoin economy. In fact, savings is the tool with which bitcoiners regulate the rates of deflation and inflation (note: not referring to the exchange rates with fiat currencies) in the bitcoin economy. It's just too bad that hoarding is plaguing the bitcoin economy at the early days of its development. Today, everyone should be spending, not hoarding.

In the absence of too-easy credit, savings is the tool with which bitcoiners come up with enough money to start large projects. :)

How large are we talking about? Perhaps it's best to start small, since bitcoin economy is still in its infancy?

up ;)

hehehe, down  ;D

down down down....

I wonder how values can be hard coded for the exchange rate? Are there any exchanges that have done this (as I don't fully know how sites and exchanges can do this)? So I can protect myself from the crashes (by holding on to my btc) and profit in the good times as well (if they return by quickly selling if my exchange allows it)

So,

A month and a half on, anyone still want to take a blind stab at my facts again?

Because if you'd like to try, there's plenty of new ammo for me to fire away with. This little community project has become such a joke...

And I'll just pleasantly watch the price slide, slide, slide.

And laugh at all the maggots who have come out of the woodwork and into my threads to lambaste me whenever I dare speak a shred of truth about the scam that is bitcoin in this holy temple of shit.

indeed, trend is down

Heheh,

Just a month ago, this thread would have been over-run with short-sighted fools with an eye on the prize, all deriding me for me "crystal-ball gazing."

How silent it's gotten here...

Thanks for all the laughs guys, it was a fun ride.

It's not over yet.  We haven't had capitulation yet (plenty of perma-bulls still calling for $100/btc by year end, no "all is lost" sentiment at all), but there is now a possibility of that in the next 2-3 months.

After that is over -- who knows.  There's still long term upside potential, especially if the algorithm changes from sha-1 to a memory-intensive algorithm + sha-1 and opens the bitcoin ecosystem participation to the general public again.

If it becomes a small club of FGPA and ASIC hardware owners as the entire bitcoin community IMO the odds of mass adoption go to zero.

Well, there will never be an ASIC or widespread FPGA adoption due to cost. Never.

And capitulation isn't necessary to call the ToD on this project.  It's obviously winding down, losing steam, and spiraling into obscurity.

Such are fads.

Quoting a troll in a troll thread.

You must be so happy now. With the "fad" forgotten all your time spent on this forum writing 565 posts will be as wasted as our development time. But at least we trained our skills doing so.

You lose either way. If bitcoin lives, you are just another angry man with a stick preaching about the "end of the world" which never came. If bitcoin disappears, this forum disappears and you will have accomplished nothing.

+1
Agree with you. Most often those longer term downtrends like the down we have seen since June 2011 end with a capitulation "crash".

We probably need to see this in BTCUSD before we make significant progress on the upside.

Nah, not wasted time, it's been very entertaining.

And recent history is replete with programmers hammering out code on dead end projects, nothing new.

Yes, it is.

This is true. In case of bitcoin it was particularly compounded by the fact that the various side projects are/were building wrappers around horribly bad central engine.

But the central idea still seems interesting. Even if it isn't completely innovative, it is/was an innovative combination of earlier ideas.

And no matter what will happen to Bitcoin itself, the education in scam detection and avoidance will have a lasting positive effect on many people. I would never expect that such a variety of emotions could be stirred by a piece of badly written C++ code.

Cryptocurrency is definitely interesting. I'm just disappointed Bitcoin had to be the first incarnation and that it achieved such popularity. It's a shame because the fact is that Bitcoin fucking sucks. It's poorly thought out, and horribly implemented.

It was a wonderful proof-of-concept, and would have made an EXCELLENT academic paper for some aspiring undergrad. However, becoming the fad phenomenon of a mockery of some new global alternative currency is purely the result of a bunch of poorly educated get-rich-quick maggots and the nature of open source software.

Cryptocurrency as a concept has been irreparably HARMED in the near term because of this shithole backwater project...

Of course, it has served its purpose in the darker seedier sides of transaction processing...I'm sure there's plenty of anon very happy that bitcoin has made purchasing child porn, scheduled drugs, and who knows what else, an easier reality for them...

But that doesn't really help the rest of us on the sane side of the global economy.

Sane as in not wanting to pay to see children raped or murdered, etc...

It still may be a good subject of some dissertation. In fact I hope it will not pass into obscurity, but it will stay an active subject of research and academic writing.

In addition I consider "short term irreparable HARM" a good thing: it is an excellent and fresh source for an examples of wide variety of scams. Sometimes it is hard to keep explaining to young people how scams work using the cases from 19 and early 20 centuries. Now we have really neat 21 century scam: all digital, all new-genaration, all Internet. No need to keep invoking tired, old references to "dog and ponny show" & "snake oil salesmen".

Most importantly, it doesn't appear to have been designed from the start to be a scam. It evolved into it.

plonk

I suggest anyone with a few braincells left ignore this troll

I get it.  Pay Blackwater to do it using pallet loads of USD and close your eyes then, eh?  Or did you mean direct deposit to NATO troops bank accounts?

Does the mention of the black market offend you all?

It's a fact that Bitcoin makes black-market transactions easier than cash. I'm not saying that's a failing of Bitcoin, the failing of bitcoin is that it's more viable for the black market than the white market...

Nope.  The definition of black vs. white markets seem to shift around at the whims of those who can afford lobbyists.  As in, unless you are paying a %10000 markup on some medicine you need, it's 'black market.'


I think BTC (based currency) would be highly viable for the 'white market' if there were a need.  USD works fine for me currently for most things.  If/when it stops being so, I wish to have an alternative.

I'm curious, what things to USD not work well for?

You want _that_ as a freebie?  Don't hold your breath.

Lol, what?

I just mean, I can't even imagine what it's more difficult for you to buy with USD, unless you're talking about black market goods....

Well anyway, Bitcoin sucks, it has caused a lot of pain and strife, enriched a few undeserved shysters (and still is), and may very well to turn out to be written into the history books as a more modern example of the tulip craze or beanie babies.,,

As I've said, the sooner it dies, the better it will be for cryptocurrency in the future.

I have an awesome idea for a blockchain system, but I'm certainly not going to post it here until I could protect it or release a full program.

Obviously you can't keep any currency out of a black market, and fools and their money will always be soon parted, but my chain completely obviates the potential for the rife abuse of centralized systems as we have with bitcoin and it's clones. As for white market viability, that would be the entire gearing of the system, and there are ingenious controls for economic accountability inherent to the chain. Bitcoin is just a proof-of-concept with no real economic forethought behind it.  The Satoshi entity might be adept at cryptographic systems, but it's economic comprehension is in severe arrears. Unless of course the entire point was to foster the pump and dump scam that it's become.

Also, this is my first post using my HP touchpad, and "bitcoin" auto-corrects to "buffoon," LOL...

Bitcoin is actually quite good. But it had bad fortune of attracting shysters from all walks of life. Bitcoin is the project about which its main architect Gavin Andresen wrote: we don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIq58UoNfE

and about 1:25 into the clip.