Shit!  I had just gotten myself genuinely convinced that I really did want to see things deep into the $1.xx's.  But the weekend is yet young...and the wall seems cyclic and ratcheting the price in a 'favorable' direction.

In other words, a meaningless catch-phrase that people toss around for whatever reason people toss such things around.  That was my suspicion.

I've yet to hear a cogent and descriptive definition of 'game over', and in fact I don't think I've ever heard anyone really tackle that.  A handful of folks fiddling around with Bitcoin on packet radio or some such could have 'a game' and probably kind of an interesting one.

I'm guessing that Chodpaba was right and we are in a phase where BTC changes hands from the category of people who would tend to be early adopters of something like Bitcoin to a different, unspecified, category.  'bag holders'?  Possibly.  Time will tell.

I'm not convinced that that is true.  I cannot see it being a very powerful stand-alone currency (that is, without legal state sponsorship) without a claw-back capability.  The designer(s) seem to me to have been thoughtful enough to have considered this.


It's potential as a store of value is as strong as the value people place in it.  Just like USD, property, gold, pork bellies, or just about anything else.


Agree.  I theorize that it is actually much better in the long run if Bitcoin plays opossum for as long as it takes for it to be obviously useful, and for all of our sake that it never happens.  My main trouble is that I am having difficulty actually enjoying this, but that's my own problem.


I had never thought of the potential for a conflagration to start in that way, and it is an interesting point to ponder (and possibly one to put some consideration into facilitating.)  I guess it would need to happen in a place where people had pretty good access to technology.  Greece?  Hmmm...

I think that some mechanism to feasibly include a blacklist or replacement list which could somehow take effect if a majority choose to do it may be worthwhile.  If very carefully considered and implemented that is.  This is effectively the same thing as a 'poison block' feature, I think, but possibly more usable.

The idea would be simply to provide a credible defense against an attacker thinking about amassing a sufficient degree of hashing power to attack the system against the will of the users.  The goal would be just to deter such an attempt since it would likely be futile anyway.

In other words, the expectation is that the list would never need to be used and someone sitting around 'waiting for a bad thing' would become old and grey before realizing any satisfaction.

Heh.  I cannot really argue with a word of that or put it much better


I do have some questions about this, however.  Firstly, it is difficult to dislodge a first comer generally even with a much better product, and I see in the original a fairly stunning combination of well made technical decisions and startlingly good implementation (although in fairness, I've neither the skill nor time to analyze it line by line.)  Secondly, in spite of the market shakeups, or perhaps to some extent because of them, I suspect that the value base is relatively widely distributed amongst the most interested geeks and most of them are not going to wish to give it up.  I certainly won't.

I could see a situation where the block chain is used as a basis for other crypto-currencies or even other yet undreamed of things.  My 'investment' or 'speculation' is actually more in just getting some secret keys which have a positive balance representation in the block chain than it is about obtaining a lot more USD than I already have.

Getting cell phone users buying trinkets with Bitcoin is not something I feel is very appropriate at the moment.  But it would be a nice thing to have in the system's back pocket and I do believe that solutions are being and have been developed for this.

The people I would prefer to see being significantly involved in Bitcoin at the moment who be those who have a specific combination of tech savvy, reasonably well off financially, deeply suspicious of everything, and (with luck) having some measure of decency and honesty.

These types of people would be best situated to not lose anything they cannot afford to lose and to assist in getting the currency distributed effectively if/when there is a legitimate need to do so arises.

It seems to me that the most damaging thing about a 51% attack would be psychological.  And that if it happened once, it might be able to happen again and again.

I personally am not to worried about a loss of hashing power due to a BTC value collapse and loss of interest, and a subsequent 51% attack.  It seems to me that a viable Bitcoin system could run fine in a fraction of today's hashing power.  There would have to be a compelling reason to mount a 51% attack and some significant coordination.  Promising some mining pool a bunch of  scamcoins in trade for their cooperation a) probably would not be sufficient motivation, and b) word would get out and a lot of miners would likely not cooperate or switch sides to actively support Bitcoin.  Probably a fair number of them would fire up their idle rigs to protect their BTC hoard.

In a truely crazy world where TPTB somehow gathered enough hashing power to attack Bitcoin successfully on an ongoing basis, there would always exist a 'nuclear option' of changing the code and getting users to upgrade (which seems to be what you are alluding to to some extent.)

The one good thing about Tradehill doing an MF-Global would be that we could have fun calling them 'Tradehole' for a few days.

I hope they don't since I have some funds there to convert to BTC if we get into the $1.xx's...but am always prepared for such a thing.

I think it is totally because of your own personal shitty attitude.  If it were not for Edward50, there is no doubt that we would be at or above $100/BTC.  See what you've done?  You've ruined the only hope we as a society have ever had or ever will have of breaking free from the shackles of the evil banking cartels.  I hope you are happy.

Well put.

One time I supported a campaign to introduce new users to Bitcoin, but I recognized that at this point all that is doing is guiding them into the line at the slaughter house (or a majority of them anyway) so I withdrew from any activities along these lines.  And would/did suggest that anyone receiving donations in Bitcoin (which I think is a great thing to do) immediately cash them out for just about anything else.

I retain a lot of hope that at some point Bitcoin will be a viable technology for the masses, but a good deal of evolution is needed before that is the case (IMHO.)

Me?  For obtaining BTC?

Mining:  Rejected it when I got interested in Bitcoin mid-summer '11.  Never regretted that decision, although I am now thinking more seriously about fiddling with FPGA stuff but mostly for fun.

OTC: Exchanges are more convenient, less overhead, and I thought to be safer (at this time.)

Business:  I've got a day job.

Barter:  I've got nothing to offer.

Theft:  Not my thing.

Begging:  ibid

I mean to say that it has become quite possible for people who got interested in Bitcoin during the hype of the bubble to obtain thousands of BTC.  Therefore, a fair number of people will likely have done so.

A good fraction of the possible Bitcoin related efforts going forward will likely benefit by actually having a lot of Bitcoin.  This could be things like making physical coins, lending them for shorting operations, backing 'designer cryptocurrencies' (which is a favorite of mine), etc.

So, for people to have a shot at getting involved in any of these things, they will either have to have acquired and held them, or be able to buy in at will in order to compete with those who do hold reasonable quantities of BTC.

I choose to acquire and hold them personally.  This is to hedge against the possibility that it will become more difficult to do due either to an increasing price or lock-out of the more established and reputable exchanges (through onerous AML's, account closures, legislation, etc.)

I note that most of the people who hold BTC hold in excess of 1000 (or lied on the poll which seems somewhat pointless...pretending that a poll itself is not somewhat pointless...) and I suspect that at least some of those people are thinking along the lines that I am.

Because it has been relatively easy to do in the post $30 bubble period, I suspect that people who do not control 1000 BTC blocks will cut out of many possible Bitcoin related endeavors going forward.  That is probably why a high-ish percentage of those who hold any BTC at all hold sums in that range.

+1 also.  I am way more inclined to do biz with this outfit because of it.

I would never trust them with more than I can afford to lose, but I would say the same thing of my BTC exchange, and of Wells Fargo.

Indeed it is!  I did not expected to buy any more silver, but if it gets down into the low $20's it is very possible that I will.  I'm in for one more purchase of BTC if we get another significant but I think that is about it (I think), and I already have the funds in place.  So I'll need some other outlet for excess USD and silver has been mighty good to me over the years.

I would welcome one more opportunity to double-down if we are lucky enough to get deeply into the $1.xx's.

FWIW, I've never spent more than about 30 minutes in a Casino in Nevada, though I was passing through Reno and payed for my hotel and dinner with a 50 cent bet in a slot machine earlier this year.  Gambling has never really been something that excites or interests me...until Bitcoin came along I suppose one could argue.  And I've never trusted the SEC enough to play in the stock market.

I am deliberately not entering this post on 'alternate cryptocurrencies'
because the intent is very much to support the 'real' Bitcoin
(and the various alternate cryptocurrencies mostly smell of scams to
me.)  I consider the solution set I propose to both reduce the
needless burdon on Bitcoin (which may or may not
gracefully scale to it's theorized potential), and provide a
much more flexible and suitable end user experiance.

In a nutshell, I propose a variety of different 'designer' currencies
with various combinations of the good ideas tuned to a particular
goal.  Generally a part of the 'base value' of these currencies
will be BTC pledged as backing.  This 'backing' could lend
immediate legitimacy to a new currency, and provide holders a BTC
a way to leverage their 'investment' to a good cause.

One of the problems I see are that there are plenty of instances
where a property is specifically and legitimately desirable for
some situations and a specifically not desirable for others.
Some examples:

 - infaltionary, deflationary, or stablized.
 - anonymity -> pseudo-anonmity -> transparency.
 - cycle rate (10-min/block, etc.)
 - charge-back capable or not.
 - cpu capable generation.

For illustrative purposes, I will elaborate on an idea for
dealing with chargebacks.  This is one of the things that is
of interest to me because it limits greatly how much I as a
potential consumer am willing to use Bitcoin as a currency.

A transaction could have a 'clawback' flag.  The potential to
claw-back could decrease over time, and doing so could serve
some useful benefit for the currency.  For instance, clawing
back a transaction could entail doing a certain amount of useful
work in securing the system.  If a user choose to use a specific
account (abaondoning pseudo-anonymity), a counterparty could
choose to either transact or not transact with another based on
their history of performing claw-backs.

One more illustrative example.  This has to do with 'redeaming'
a given designer currency for it's BTC backing.

The rules of the designer currency might be such that the
currency can be redeamed for it's BTC backing under some
condition like that the redeamer must mine an equal amount of
new BTC currency as well.  This would both strengthen the 'real'
Bitcoin system (which would be of value to those holding the
backing currency) and would limit the rate at which people could
cash out (thus insulating the base funders from flash collapse
type scenarios.)

Anyway, the goal of this note is just to introduce this idea
(which I suspect is not entirely novel.)  I will be quite
honest in saying that I hope it takes off in part because I now
hold a decent amount of BTC and it could be of benefit to me
personally.  I do believe, however, that an even bigger goal of
mine is to see crypto-currencies generally work well for all
people, and I think that a structure such as I've described
could play a part in this.

Interesting.  Looks like a nice little rope-a-dope move on the part of 'the manipulator'.  He seems to have sucked a pretty good chunk of coin out of the weak hands.

An amusing difference between those using MF Global and those using Mt. Gox is that, as I understand things, most typical users of Mt. Gox were made whole by Mt. Gox (and by extension, the Bitcoin currency system.)  This has yet to happen for Celente et-al who put their faith in the regulatory structures supporting the USD currency system {chuckle}.

But when (not 'if') Celente is made whole, I bet it will by my tax money that pays him off in the interest of 'supporting market confidence'.  {frown}

I'll chock this up as a win for the Libertarians (as much as I hate to admit it.)