Bitcoin Forum

This is not a troll thread. I ask a simple question, if you start spewing crap about this being a troll thread then you are the troll. This is a legitimate question and I see no reason why it doesn't have a place on this forum.

How many of you guys have lost faith in Bitcoin and sold almost all of yours?

Bitcoin technology is so appealing and addicting I can't possibly imagine "loosing faith". In fact, it's not about "faith", it's about understanding the underlying technology and intrinsic advantages.

likewise. i'm selling quite a few at the moment (see market), but i'm as keen as ever on bitcoins. will be buying back in as soon as i can, even if that means doing it at a higher rate.

Yeah, this is where it's a problem for me. As I've posted here already, I have major concerns about scalability of BitCoin, so I don't find the technology so "appealing".
I find the idea appealing, but not the current implementation.

I can't say I lost all faith, but I have a strong feeling that BitCoin is dying (not to spread FUD or anything)...

Scalability concerns have been very well addressed here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability (AFAIK by google employee).


What really, fundamentally matters is the infrastructure (exchanges, merchant solutions, businesses accepting Bitcoins, ...). This area is stronger than ever. Just have a look how SilkRoad is flourishing ;)

Yeah, that's comforting...

No, but one proposed solution is:

So, Bitcoin could have scaling issues in a scenario unlikely to happen within a decade at least, assuming development is being halted today.
Well, that is spreading FUD.

You can sell em?

I think, the latter sums it up quite well: "sold almost all of yours"

If you really lost faith in btc, why not sell all? Because you still believe that there might be more coming. And that is the opposite of losing faith.

So transactions still need to be distributed from every node to all others. That's not a solution.



Actually, after reading it I think scalability concerns are addressed very poorly there.

They propose all sorts of tactical ways to affect K in the "K*n2" formula, while tip-toeing around the strategic issue of n2.
The K is irrelevant, that's why we have the big-O notation.

It seems to me that so long as there is a single chain of all transactions, the system is not scalable, super-nodes or no super-nodes.
Because workload is not spread between super-nodes, but rather duplicated and in the end every (super)node has to process ALL transactions in the world...


Ok, I don't want to hijack the thread, sorry :)
I will shut up now.

+1 As long as developers are still working on improving bitcoin, I see no reason to turn away.

I wouldn't say I've "lost faith", but I do believe the market is terribly overvalued based on fundamentals, so I keep almost all my money in USD instead of BTC.  My goal from the start was to have a payment network, not a speculative investment asset, so I can't say I'm torn up about it.  To those looking to get rich quick, good luck, but I wouldn't bet my net worth on it.

+1

Getting the get-rich speculators out of the spotlight is only good for Bitcoin at the moment. Less focus on whether it's a pyramid/ponzi and more focus on what it actually brings to the table.

I'm not holding and I've withdrawn my trading funds from the exchanges.

If ever I need bitcoins, I'll buy exactly what I need and spend it immediately.

I've pretty much been spending what I mine/earn as soon as something comes up that I want and can afford lately. I'm much more interested in what it can get me now than how rich it could possibly make me sometime in the future.

I just consider this an interesting experiment. a bit raw and loose, might make a few bucks, might loose em, but entertaining all the way.

I should add this: I also run folding@home, and that rig draws 650 watts and has no tangible (to me at this moment) reward. just the warm fuzzies that Im helping advance medical research. might help me personally in the future, maybe not.

now, bitcoins have made me a couple hundred bucks (after power costs) but has not quite paid for what Ive put into it.
but I also have to consider Im contributing to an economics  (probably a better term can be used here) and, to a point, social experiment. that in itself is worth taking part of.

so, making money or not Ill be part of this for a while. I try to stash 1/3 of my coins in an offline wallet (just in case it takes off big time), and spread the rest around.

+1.  This is why I'm still here.  I want to see where this goes.

I'm still mining, even though it's only roughly breaking even for me, and even though I'm just selling off the proceeds.  I'm not willing to put fiat currency into the system right now (for the reasons I've mentioned before), but I don't withdraw my fiat either, and I trade back to BTC whenever I want to use it.

Even if BC doesn't succeed in the long run, we are pioneering a new economy.  The next system will benefit from what we've learned.

Why would anyone "lose faith"? What has changed, that made you have "faith" months ago, but not now anymore?

Very little has changed technically; if anything, the client code was improved, the block chain is somewhat longer, and a lot of transactions have been successfully handled.

However, it still isn't an investment vehicle. There is a large difference between having faith in bitcoin as technology and faith that the price will increase indefinitely. If the economic crisis taught us anything, it's that the second is certainly not true (for anything) and if that causes you to "sell out" that's a wise choice.

My chief objection to your last statement is that much of what we've learned, we only had to re-learn it because we disregarded the learnings of the last few centuries of economics.

Things like banks making loans, with no collateral to mostly-anonymous parties in a currency that has "non recoverable" as one of it's drawing points is fraught with fraud? Whodathunkit?

The really exciting part is the inflation/deflation part of things, which we're not truly going to get to the meat-and-potatoes (zero inflation, ever) of for a long while to come yet. The predictable inflation thing is still there now and is still interesting, but the results are mostly predictable.

So it's not really that interesting from an economics standpoint, I think (except watching the people who are convinced it'll be different this time come to the soul-crushing realization it won't be) but it certainly is from a social standpoint. A currency that exists solely based on voluntary participation and still has a functioning (though tiny) market is kind of cool regardless of what happens.

John Smith: Nothing's changed technically, it's the social aspect surrounding it. Bitcoin's "technically perfect", except in the sense that it's mostly expecting people to be perfect. In that sense, there's still a lot of work to be done.

Yeah that was also my point -- the social aspect hasn't changed either in the two years since the beginning of the project.

People are still new to cryptocurrencies, their advantages, disadvantages, dangers, and so on. There isn't even legal precedent for them yet. These are the very early stages. Way too early to "lose faith" unless your expectations were way overblown.

Bitcoins haven't been doing too good over the past 3 months or so.

Doesn't mean I'm going to stop. These things happen, it's completely normal for a currency. In fact, one should've expected this when you put your feet in the Bitcoin water. It goes with the territory and shouldn't be something not expected to happen.

Also, for those saying you care more about now than profiting in the future, then you are defeating the definition of investing. And that is what bitcoins are about or any other currency related market. Hell, I find Bitcoins to be more in relation to stocks than currency because it's easier to explain. You don't invest in stocks and expect an instant payout unless you know something other people don't.

I plan on continuing to invest and mine even more than ever. Hell, I'm tempted to go on mtgox right now and buy $200 more worth of bitcoin because it's low. Also, winter is coming so mining is going to be popular too. I'd be mining as much as I can right now but I'm stuck in a college dorm room that is a sauna even with just my laptop yet alone my 6990 rig turned out (not mining mind you).

Bitcoin is still considered fairly new. I look at it as if its in the beta stage if anything. Hell, in my eyes, it just came out of alpha. We're not even at a stable release yet to make any concrete judgement. My two cents. :)


How is it not an investment vehicle?
Just because a particular market crashes, ie the economic crisis, doesn't mean that the market in question was never an "investment vehicle." It proves the opposite, it IS an investment. A market that is invested in has the potential of crashing, therefore if a market crashes the market must be an invested one. Every market out there in existence is an investment vehicle as every market out there has the potential of crashing. Just because it does crash doesn't mean it no longer can be considered a market or never was which is what I think you're claiming.

Bitcoin consists of people buying, selling, or mining bitcoin. USD or any other currency consists of people buying, selling, or working for USD. Stocks consist of people buying, selling, or creating stocks. It's all in the same boat. Investment. Whether you invest in the work behind any of the 3, or buying/selling for any of the 3.

I think a lot of people's expectations were overblown. I've seen at least two people put forth the argument that the government and regulations are what's causing people to be ripped off, and if only those two things would piss off then everyone would conduct business amicably.

Bitcoin's proven, emphatically, the opposite: that given anonymity and zero regulation, the scumbags come out of the woodwork.

The price of bitcoins hasn't been doing too good over the past 3 months. The project itself is doing fine.

Know that a lot of coins are being produced at the moment, so taking into account the laws of supply and demand it somehow makes sense that the price is going down.

(then again, the price is back to apr-june prices around $8, which isn't that bad... there just was an unreasonable hype)

Because it is a payment system. Of course you can buy them in large numbers hoping the price will increase, but that was never the idea behind it.  Read the wiki if you question this... it nowhere mentions "investment" or "get rich quick".

There are people saying that in any community. Yes, the number of anarcho-capitalists, libertarians and conservative-right here is more than average, but there is nothing in the bitcoin source itself that hates governments and regulations. If you know who you do business with, you can sue them if they wrong you, whatever currency you use.

Trust is a very fickle issue, both on and off the internet, nothing will magically solve that.

Excuse me, that is what I meant. My apologies.


Investment =/= get rich quick.
Investment is the EXACT opposite. It's putting money into something, in hopes of getting a profit in the FUTURE.

in·vest·mentNoun/inˈves(t)mənt/
1. The action or process of investing money for profit or material result.
2. A thing that is worth buying because it may be profitable or useful in the future.

What do you mean "it is a payment system"? How is that an argument against BTC being an investment vehicle? Any currency that is currently being used as a "payment system" has investments behind it. People invest in USD and EUR for example every day as much as people invest in stocks. Both USD and EUR are payment systems and always have been considered that.

Just because BTC was created as an anonymous currency system does not change the fact that it is a currency and that people invest in currency. You cannot ignore it, especially when people are doing good with it.

Yup, I'm agreeing with you there... my point was that I think a lot of people just thought that Bitcoin would prevent the government/regulations from sticking it's filthy hands in the pot, and that that would magically fix everything. I think that's where a lot of the desperation is coming from at the moment, and I'm personally feeling that that's probably playing a part in the price.

I still wholeheartedly believe in it to the extent I ever did - a novel payments system whose participation is entirely voluntary. I suppose I did to an extent get caught up in the investment thing when it looked like it was going skyward - it was awful tough to actually part with any at that time. When I saw the top around $32, I came to my senses - played the market a bit while it was fun, then went back to buying things with it.

Now I don't particularly pay too much attention to the price - if I'm trying to decide if I want to buy something, I look at the price in Bitcoins, and I figure out how long it will take my GPU to mine that much, and work out if it's worth it in my head. The only way I pay attention to price when I'm working out if I'm losing money on electricity by mining them. In no way is Bitcoin disappointing to me when I look at it that way.

I know.  But it isn't that either. Speculation is the word.

It's more like buying up lots of pork bellies in the hope they will increase in price because the world population is rising and there are a lot of hungry people.

I'm not ignoring it. I'm just sick and tired of people crying wolf every time the price drops, as if the project is dying. This is not like a company stock. More like a commodity that is mass-produced in large quantities.

The only difference with traditional commodities such as metals is that bitcoins are produced at a fixed rate (of 300 per hour), independent of the number of producers.

Then again... if the price is dropping by 50% because of someone offloading thousands of stolen bitcoins then yeah people should be crying foul and getting the fuck out, no matter how cool the idea is.

Why?  Using that analogy you should dump your dollars and get out of them too.  Cash can be stolen.  Bad people can use it.  Same with bitcoins. 

Price is still up significantly compared to where it was in the months before June.

I haven't sold anything and I won't sell anything until prices look good for me. I'm still long. (Years instead of weeks or months) If it doesn't increase in price that's fine, I don't have a whole lot invested, but I'd rather see it through than sell out now.

Not exactly.

With anoymity and zero regulation the scumbags that did not manage to get into the government try to attack you.

With regulations you have institunialized scams and theft.

At least without regulation you can defend yourself.

I think it's helpful to remember that Bitcoin is an entirely new form of "money" or whatever you want to call it.  We are pioneers conducting a grand experiment to see if a viable economy can be sustained with a pseudo-anonymous, peer-to-peer currency.  I for one think what we are doing is very important, and I'm more than willing to risk the time and money in order to potentially have an economy free of centralized interference. 

In response to the OP's question, I continue to hold onto 50% of all Bitcoins that I mine and exchange the other 50% at the prevailing market rate.  I've recovered the cost of my mining equipment, and I have no need to cash out the remaining coins I hold. 

I've sold most of my BTC.  I still have a few.  I'm also considering taking any mention of BTC off my websites...soon...

Bitcoin isn't going anywhere it's just taken a beating recently but everything has to go through these type of phases!

My buy orders look like:
x at $8
2x at $4
4x at $2
8x at $1

That way I can take advantage of the price drop, no matter how low it goes.

How much will you sell those for when exchanges trade @ 0.00xxx?

What do you mean? Obviously when I want to sell, I'll sell at whatever the exchange rate is. If your point is that Bitcoin might not work out, I agree, but after a lot of consideration it's a risk I'm willing to take.

I sold out my dollars to buy Bitcoins. I was sick of this...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oTwEGiup_Wo/TNT46yo_47I/AAAAAAAAFaU/xnUL1OVGabY/s1600/bernanke_09_dollar_since_1913_cpi_deflator.jpg

It is great to have people like you, because you guys produce some cool stories.
One of the best example is https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0)

Lost faith? No.
Sold? yes.

Actually, I want to buy some things with the Bitcoins I mine, but I would rather keep the USD so I can buy back in later.

Yeah, and while none of mine are as cool as that, there was a guy on Reddit commenting about that thread saying how stupid the guy was.

My personal answer was that the whole "coulda shoulda woulda" around that particular case is just dumb - without the first few people trading them for things or USD, the market wouldn't be where it is today. Someone has to be the guy to get rid of their stuff. I think the exact example I used was "if I would have just saved all my allowance until I was 18, I could buy a ferrarri!" - it's just dumb to think like that.

The guy got two pizzas and an awesome story out of what was at the time essentially worthless - that's cool as shit, regardless of how much those coins would be worth today.

Now plot that against income.

FWIW, inflation is a good thing if you're in debt to someone.

This thread is useless.  It should have been a poll.

Lost faith.. no..


Sold.. whats that ?

I agree in regards to economics, though it's been an interesting experiment to see how an economy behaves at a small scale.  (So far: it's an awful lot like a penny stock, and there aren't any really big surprises if that's what you expected early on.)

There are other things we're learning, though.  The technical proof-of-concept is great.  Seeing how people react to confirmation delays is interesting.  People would never put the work into more advanced clients if we didn't have a functional network to motivate them, and I'm eager to see how light clients really pan out.  An ATM in this kind of world is an interesting challenge.  There's a lot of stuff like that that that we're learning.

My trading history

Bought 3 Aug 2011 Britcoin

1 @ $10.33
1 @ $10.00
5 @ $9.84

Bought 6 Aug

50 @ $8.70
70 @ $8.22
8 @ $8.53

Bought 7 Aug

10 @ $6.58
13 @ $6.56

Bought 15 Aug Mt.Gox

145.19 @ $11.2

Bought 16 Aug

0.525 @ $11.1

Sold 27 Aug Mt.Gox

145 @ $8

Sold 27 Aug Britcoin

145 @ $8.19

Total Btc atm: 13 @ $6.50 = $84.50
Trading loss atm: $493 from $3270, about 15%

I wonder if this would be tax deductable, can't see why not

lost faith - nope, lost money - yep

Lost faith: no
Sold: yes
Bought back: just now

Bitcoin is still Bitcoin, nothing has changed. It's great. If you lost faith now because the price is down then you had faith in the wrong things to begin with. The price is not the most relevant factor for Bitcoin and neither are any of the stuff that has happened with 3rd party services. Bruce Wagner ain't Bitcoin either.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin and it's still doing well. There are no real issues that are causing Bitcoin itself trouble at the moment so why lose faith?

I will start reselling Bitcoin to friends and acquaintances when I have a simple off-line solution for printing key pairs as QR codes. BTW, what happened to bitbills?

They used MyBitcoin as their payment provider, and haven't found a new one yet.

The value of myholdings dropped quite a bit, since I've bought between $6 and $17, and one large purchase at $20, but I'm still buying. May buy another $3k worth in a week or two.

I'm selling out... don't know if it's manipulated or wut.. but been dropping steadly at .5 incroments, these last few days.. 10,... 9.5....9.....8.5...8...7.5....7...now 6.5... great...

Technical chart trends point to down:

http://blog.bitcoinwatch.com/

$6 was nearly breached today from $7.5, I think that we may see a slide to $5 quite easily & with Fin CEN, KYC for MSB on 27th Sept being bearish

I have been watching that site for month, and it's just pathetic.

His "technical analysis" is nothing but common-fucking-sense, and he keeps saying LONG TERM: UP, like some idiot with a sales pitch.

What a joke.

Actually, he's been consistently WRONG throughout the bubble deflation.

I remember right after the Gox scandal he was predicting that it was going to rise large very soon.  Then after the first big crash he predicted a huge rebound. Then again during the second big crash.

Anyone who follows his "technical analysis" ascribing any credibility are just as psychologically damaged and transparent as the author...

The price is only gonna go so low. I mean, there are still a lot of people who are interested in and use bitcoin. It's perfect for Craig's List-style trading. There's no way it's going under $2.

Well, let the real commerce begin. Can anybody make me a deal on some 26 x 1.5 bicycle inner tubes? I want about 10, if the price is right.

26"? Pfft. Real men ride 700c, peewee.

as it gets into this range the resistance gets higher and higher to go lower. Unless people completely give up on the idea of bitcoin I can't see it going much below $4.

Why?

Why can't bitcoin still have a vibrant economy and it be worth < $1?

I'll tell you why this is the perception: because Bitcoin has and always will be nothing but a bullshit pyramid scam, and people think that the price MUST be above $1 somewhere for bitcoin to be relevant.

But I ask you this:  How is Bitcoin anymore important than the GDP of ENTIRE FUCKING NATIONS who's currency is denominated much lower than 1 USD?

Is Bitcoin more important than Japan's economy?

India's?

Mexico's?

Estonia's?


NO, NO OF COURSE NOT YOU GODDAMNED XXXXX.

lrn2 market cap, the units differ in scarcity.

Relative to their respective economies?


LOL, lrn2 fail less.

lrn2 store of value vs. currency.

Regardless of what bullshit is being spread here, Bitcoin is not a currency, it’s a payment method or USD proxy at best. Noone is being paid Bitcoins as wage. Noone accepts it for basic goods.

Store of value on a long-term scale it possibly is, depends mainly on the integrity of the core system and if it will indeed remain the dominant chain.

Hey, I know it's a bullshit pump and dump, it's the fool I was replying to with my original insulting post and all of his ilk that I was addressing...

At $4 the market cap is around $30million. Which is barely anything, meaning most have given up on the idea of bitcoin. That's all I was saying.

$2 means $15million $1 about $7 million.

Yes you can still use it as a payment method, however it means barely anyone is using it, so why use it that way? There's barely any customers.

Uh, the USD value has never reflected how many people are using it as a payment method for actual goods and services.  If it did, we'd certainly be blow $1...

It is a sign of economic activity in general though. The stats for me show there are more purchases when the exchange rate is higher. At a $7million market cap it means there's barely any activity, might as well move along.

My sentiments exactly...

Sold: Yes
Lost faith: Yes

I don't believe anymore that Bitcoin will become a widespread medium of exchange so I sold all my remaining BTC for NMC. Namecoin has the same economic and technical flaws as Bitcoin but I believe it is better suited as a store of value because of its uses outside being a currency.  

*hypothetical uses

the .bit tld is sill just an idea.

Sold everything a $8. Lost confidence? Never really had it.

The .bit tld exists. Having low adoption doesn't make it "hypothetical". Also you can register any type of name/value data you like, not just domain names.

It exists.

It's not usable.

And apart from my own ?coin idea, I see no other uses for NMC other than a secure .tld

I'm honestly curious what other use NMC would serve besides a .tld?

I sold about 1/3 at 8+ and i wish I had dumped all... oh well.

It's usable, it's just not user friendly (understatement of the century, but hey).

IIRC, Namecoin simply stores key/value pairs - you could use it for all kinds of things, like a public crypto-verified mailing address, storing encryption public keys (so you needn't trust a keyserver)... there's all kinds of uses for such a scheme.

It's been there before.  I believe it's going there again, based on market fundamentals. I've ranted enough about it in Economics and Speculation, so I won't repeat it all here.

There's no force that holds it over $1 (other than a bump in market support that will make it hover there for a few days), and there's no reason it becomes useless at that point.  There was a small but successful BC economy when it was a small fraction of a dollar.

i sold out at 6 btc/usd if you're wondering... traded 2 btc @ 6 USD since i'd figure i won't even get 5 dollars for them.