Its really funny to me that you guys seem to be so conversant with the Austrian/bitcoin philosophy that you can no longer conceive of the other perspective. A hyper-deflationary event can actually be just a bad as a hyper-inflationary event. They both massively interfere with long term financial planning which results in economic stress and puts people into poverty. In the hyper-inflationary event everyone holding currency gets screwed. In the hyper-deflationary event people with loans are screwed (because everything else, like your salary, is adjusted to reflect the increased worth of the currency) and rich people start saving instead of investment resulting in stagnant growth. Joe and Jane sixpack don't care that they can buy 1/XXXX of everything. They want 1 coin to buy 1 gallon of milk today, tomorrow, next year and 100 years from now. To them that is a consistent measurement. I'm skeptical that the apocryphal people in your example would prefer the coin which buys one gallon of milk today to only buy one gallon of milk in the future instead of more than one gallon. I think what they actually care about is not losing purchasing power, not consistent measurements. Consistent measurements imply that purchasing power is not lost... Financial planning is difficult if you consider that 1/XXXX of nothing is nothing. But easy if you can rely in the future on 1 BTC to buy 1 meal. Of course, that's the lie -- the current system has inflated away most of the value of the currency. So you simply CAN'T rely on this and need to take that into account when planning. Your disk analogy is flawed. A more accurate example would be if a back in the days of 360KB floppies, someone coined one DU (disk unit) to be 1/360th of a disk. So with today's 1TB hard drives, the minimum addressable size (1 DU) is 2.7GB.
I think the disk analogy is perfect. 1 kilobyte is still 1 kilobyte today just the same as it was 20 years ago. We just refer to storage mediums in terms of gigabytes or terabytes now, because file sizes are so large as to make kilobytes mostly irrelevant in day-to-day file management. 1 Bitcoin today will still be 1 Bitcoin 20 years from now. We'll just refer to them in terms of milliBitcoins or microBitcoins 20 years from now, because they'll be worth so much as to make 1 Bitcoin mostly irrelevant in day-to-day transactions. Now, granted, 1 BTC could be worth a lot more in the future, thus the purchasing power of 1 BTC would have increased. But the corollary still exists to an extent: 1 kilobyte could have stored more 20 years ago than it does today (in terms of documents and images), largely because of the additional metadata in document files and additional quality in imagery present today. A very nice correlation in logic IMO, even if not perfect. I think I'll use that when speaking with others about the 21 million coin limit. 1 kilobyte has "marginal utility"; it stores 1024 characters. So it really does measure something. But a Bitcoin has no fundamental measurement. Its value is set by the market and since there are only 21 million, its value (how many it takes to get what you want) rises and falls over time as the relationship between the scarcity of the currency and the scarcity of the good. Please don't use this analogy; everyone who hears it will drill it full of holes... its better to use the balloon analogy. In bitcoin's case the balloon is the market, so the value of a bitcoin finds its optimal worth. In fiat currency the balloon is the central bank and they can blow it up until it pops! BTW, Your quote works exactly the same with the dollar: "1 dollar today will still be 1 dollar 20 years from now..." That's preaching to the choir  Others will argue that you are changing your yardstick. Bitcoin is like a measuring stick drawn around a balloon as the balloon is inflated (or deflated) the size of a bitcoin increases/decreases. Joe and Jane sixpack don't care that they can buy 1/XXXX of everything. They want 1 coin to buy 1 gallon of milk today, tomorrow, next year and 100 years from now. To them that is a consistent measurement ... However, people STILL want a currency with a reasonably steady cost-for-a-representative-basket-of-goods. People should not want that. Prices are supposed to vary according to economical reality, not according to our assumption or desire of stability. Otherwise, I have a great idea to solve global warming issues. Since we would like the global temperature to stay more or less stable, let's change the definition of the temperature to cancel out the effect of greenhouse gazes. Also, I would be very surprised if Jane or Joe was unhappy about a decreasing price of a sixpack.Sure, but what people *should* want and what they *do* want are very different things. Its all about wild swings, living in a world where the currency varies by 25% (say) monthly is like gambling with one quarter of your life savings every month. Not fun for most people... Coming into the creation of the Fed, there was a lot of currency uncertainty in the US... but some revisionists actually believe that this may have in fact been due to poorly conceived prior regulation not despite it. |
|
|
|
That's preaching to the choir Others will argue that you are changing your yardstick. Bitcoin is like a measuring stick drawn around a balloon as the balloon is inflated (or deflated) the size of a bitcoin increases/decreases. Joe and Jane sixpack don't care that they can buy 1/XXXX of everything. They want 1 coin to buy 1 gallon of milk today, tomorrow, next year and 100 years from now. To them that is a consistent measurement. Your disk analogy is flawed. A more accurate example would be if a back in the days of 360KB floppies, someone coined one DU (disk unit) to be 1/360th of a disk. So with today's 1TB hard drives, the minimum addressable size (1 DU) is 2.7GB. This actually happened. Back before Newton, coinage in england was so bad and limited that the smallest denomination did not pay for a meal. So people would eat for a few weeks and then finally settle up. Thus the invention of the "bar tab". And unfortunately, that's why there aren't "car tabs" -- that would be when you buy 5 to 10 cars before you have to head over to the dealership to actually settle up.  Bitcoin's saving grace and what separates it (in this regard) from all prior currencies is its infinite divisibility. Yes infinite; if a Satoshi ever actually exceeds the cost of bubble gum a painful but entirely possible client and protocol change count add more zeros. So Bitcoin can simultaneously encompass the complete wealth of the world and be used to pay for the cheapest item. This has never before been the case and renders all Keynesian historical-based arguments about the danger of a un-inflatable currency potentially inapplicable. However, people STILL want a currency with a reasonably steady cost-for-a-representative-basket-of-goods. Once upon a time, some bankers convinced governments that they could do the above. And they have attempted to do it. When the money supply needs to expand they essentially create money backed by an individual's promise of future production (loan) and give the interest on that loan to their friends and colleagues. And by taking the money from the uncareful/unprepared/unlucky (regardless more evenly across the population) when it needs to contract  . But they have failed; the value of the currency has dropped over 95%. That's where we are today. Bitcoiners are willing to experiment with the idea that some pricing uncertainty is a lesser evil then this alternative. |
|
|
|
|
Does the type of graph of the bids & asks -- you know the one formatted like a valley -- not the bars of bitcoin charts -- that everyone posts have a name?
|
|
|
|
Why is there always this urge to attribute price movements to "one large buyer" or "the manipulator" etc?  I feel like there is a psychological need to attribute things to single people... maybe this is why so many believe in god, and in a king or president to control things? Because the volume and market cap could certainly allow a single large buyer or a consortium of sophisticated traders, to manipulate the btc market very easily. Even worse, its a schizophrenic manipulator who does stuff like BUY 10k BTC to raise the price up to 14.31 and about an hour or so later sells it down below 14! And then buys little bits back up to 14.20... I'm sure there's a simpler explanation to this story... |
|
|
|
Logically the merchants should be thinking in the same way, and pricing their products in Bitcoins with a substantial discount compared to the fiat price.
Not only do they save on creditcard fees, but they also receive Bitcoins directly without having to touch any fiat.
The market should automatically adjust the price of things in Bitcoins to take into account the attractiveness of holding bitcoins over fiat.
So people who hold bitcoins can expect their bitcoins to be worth more, and also to be able to get things cheaper than everyone else.
Right it might be cheaper to accept bitcoins, like bitpay at 1%, but its also like 6% to change the currency to usd. BitPay charges way less than 6% to convert to USD. Sorry, I wasn't clear I guess, not 6% by bitpay, but for other exchanges. Not all transactions are via bitpay. Edit: I just checked bitpays stats out, 1% transaction + 2.69 to cash to bank. 3.69% is a huge percentage. It might not seem like a lot, but if you do $100,000 with normal processors at 1.9% you're paying $1900 in fees, bitpay is $3,690 in fees. Which isn't completely terrible, just stating lowering prices just because accepted in bitcoin isn't logical. It is 2.69% for USD payout or 0.99% for BTC payout https://bitpay.com/pricing. Yep. I can confirm they only charge 2.69%. Wouldn't it be .5 to .6% to sell on an exchange and then a flat bank wire fee or .25c dwolla xfer? |
|
|
|
Let me know how hoarding works out for you. In my experience there are so many reasons to cash out or invest bitcoins in other projects that hoarding them starts to look like the slowest way to get rich. And if you're looking to get rich, there's no reason to take the slow lane.
Also, it may be the case that when bitcoin gets to $100, it may be because the us dollar has lost an inverse proportion in purchasing power, so you end up with the ability to buy as much as you did before. Lot's of starving millionaires in Zimbabwe.
investment in bitcoin denominated projects contains all the risk of bitcoin + counterparty risk + the project risk. So that a reason to save bitcoins rather then "invest" them. If bitcoin will have gotten to 100USD solely due to inflation within the next few years, it will actually get to more like 10000USD because people will be running from fiat like its on fire. In a hyperinflationary world currency event the only money that will be effective for international commerce will be PMs or bitcoin. But don't consider the above to be a prediction. Much more likely is sustained yearly inflation at < 20% -- that will do the job over the long term and keep society stable. Frog in a pot. |
|
|
|
If you do not understand me - I meant what I noticed (suspected) prepared large "bull" to yesterday's purchase. And put this video. Before firing. Shooter tight press in the gun. Cow shit. Titles: "strongly pressed shit - the stronger will be shot"  Thx! that totally cleared it up LOL! BTW, you might mean "bullshit" not cow shit... other then that, you remain absolutely completely inscrutable. |
|
|
|
|
I get the invalid cert warning:
campbx.com uses an invalid security certificate.
The certificate is only valid for the following names:
ssl2627.cloudflare.com , target-prize.net , vincentdavid.com , yaluandmike.com , *.bluechinese.com , *.nosh.co.nz , *.nutriculamagazine.com , *.ratgeberzentrale.de , *.saocarlosagora.com.br , *.sexoamador.net , *.target-prize.net , *.vincentdavid.com , *.yaluandmike.com , *.eslipcovers.com , *.healthshare.com.au , mmoga.co.uk , bluechinese.com , *.redeemia.com , redeemia.com , *.mmoga.de , *.mmoga.co.uk , *.aulafacil.com , *.axzmdesign.com , *.businessprofiles.com , *.importbestbuys.com , av8d.tv , mmoga.de , nosh.co.nz , nutriculamagazine.com , ratgeberzentrale.de , saocarlosagora.com.br , sexoamador.net , adobestor.com , aulafacil.com , axzmdesign.com , businessprofiles.com , eslipcovers.com , healthshare.com.au , importbestbuys.com , *.excitingwallpapers.com , excitingwallpapers.com , *.adobestor.com , *.av8d.tv
(Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)
could someone actually be trying to do a MIM attack?
and its back! Fascinating...
|
|
|
|
Is it just me, or is it really looks like smaller version of May 2011 to Mar 2012?   it looks nothing like the bubble. We just sat in a stable plateau period that lasted half as long as the entire original bubble runup. Nor does the runup match graphs of other bubbles. Your fears are causing you to find a similarity where none exists. Note, I'm not saying we won't go down. But even if we dropped off a cliff tomorrow (which I think unlikely) the graph STILL would not match that of a bubble. Every time a price rises then falls does not make a "bubble". Every time the price goes exponential and then falls more than 5% is a bubble. There was an echo bubble, but you are right that it is recovering much better this time because speculative bubbles can't harm a market with sound fundamentals other than in the short term. Right. So where's the exponential? And not sure where you got that 5% number but I don't think many investors would call a 5% dip a bubble. Maybe 50%... but 75-90% for sure. Where are you getting that lame definition? The wikipedia page[1] on an economic bubble has this to say: "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values". In other words, when the market becomes irrational, in either direction. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubbleThis definition unfortunately refers to "intrinsic values" that can only be know after the event (if ever). BTW I don't like the other definition either. But very simply, if there were a bubble one effect would be that people would have been spending their xmas and ny vacations trying to GET bitcoins. Bubble fever. Instead we saw low volumes as people did rational things during the vacation (like take time off). |
|
|
|
Hm. So someone buying most of the 14 wall all in one shot. That does not seem very organic in the way of growth.
It seems like someone wants to break that barrier to start a false bull run?
I'm not sure if I'd call it "false". It makes sense that on both the bid and ask side when you have a surmountable wall close to the money and then a flat region a large player who has been sitting will grab it and then push the price through the flat. The end result is the buyer/seller gets his trade with very little average slippage but simultaneously is able to raise or drop the price significantly. Like today, someone just bought out 13.99 to 14.10 for an average price of say 14.01 and is already seeing prices stabilizing at 14.08. Let's say he had bought hours ago, so spent the extra on the low side of the wall. Then you might imagine he buys from 13.9x to 14.00 but his average price would be 13.99x with the market price left at 14.00, but likely to retrace leaving the buyer starting off the block with a loss. |
|
|
|
Right, once we reach the 1 trillion unspent transactions in a decade or 3. And all advances in storage technology will stop from today forward.
Looks you are completely theoretical, while I'm practical. With your optimism paypal can run their processing on raspberry PI 1 trillion? And PC will survive? LOL. No, you're being theoretical too. There is currently no problem, and you are imagining usage levels that will take decades to arrive. I'm being much more practical than you about adoption rate, yet somehow I'm more bullish . No problem? You fokin kidding me? If I use Bitcoin for payments once a week or two, and need to wait hours for sync each time I launch client - its not a problem? My PC hangs for that time - its not a problem? Don't offer me crunch! Imagine I am regular stupid user - not Satan slave. Is it not a problem? Where is log(n) in this formula? Clever blind bulls. You sound like an IT guy with no understanding of the underlying algorithms and methodologies. What do you think people did back when each bit of RAM was literally a magnetic torus hand-threaded with wires and data was stored in a big linear magnetic tape that took minutes to "seek" to the proper position? I didn't live it but have read about it. There are clever algorithms (btree being one) that minimize uncached key lookup time. Holding all the database keys in RAM is a very new technique only recently made possible due to how cheap RAM has gotten. Also, all unspent txn don't need to be held. Lots of coins out there don't move at all (~90%) which is why some people think a lot of hoarding is going on. So the RAM need only cache the acts/txns that are "in play". And if bitcoin becomes incrediably popular, imagine a network that dynamically creates new blockchains among commonly-transacting user groups (regional, for example) spends BTC from the main blockchain into this new chain and then after a few months (or whatever) merges the chain back. This technique that would make it so that the main blockchain does not see every microtransaction in the entire world, and subchains could have either smaller or longer settling times depending on the requirements for that chain. Sure it would take a lot of effort to implement. No point doing it until there really is a problem with the system as it exists today. |
|
|
|
Is it just me, or is it really looks like smaller version of May 2011 to Mar 2012? it looks nothing like the bubble. We just sat in a stable plateau period that lasted half as long as the entire original bubble runup. Nor does the runup match graphs of other bubbles. Your fears are causing you to find a similarity where none exists. Note, I'm not saying we won't go down. But even if we dropped off a cliff tomorrow (which I think unlikely) the graph STILL would not match that of a bubble. Every time a price rises then falls does not make a "bubble". |
|
|
|
|
I see USD there... does this mean you take other forms of payment?
What I need seems to be the opposite of your normal offering: the option to send an invoice and have the customer pay in any currency via bank xfer, CC (or bitcoin transfer!) and send it to me in BTC. This way my customers avoid currency conversion fees (depending on your take it may be cheaper to convert currencies through bitcoin then through the banking system) & I just convert my costs back to USD to be paid and hold the rest in BTC...
|
|
|
|
|
Casascius I think you underestimate the colored coin concept.
Sure there will be the same counterparty risk when a virtual coin stands in for a physical thing as when a piece of paper does so. So the key component will be to design the backing such that the backer is encouraged to be honest. This essentially entails charging a fee for the service. Either when coins are redeemed or ongoing. For example, that issuer of colored coins with 1000 oz gold in a vault could issue 1% (of the total currently in circulation) more colored coins per year. This "load" would be part of the contract, not a hidden scam. Or a transfer fee: all colored coin transactions must also contain an uncolored bitcoin TX to the issuer's address.
In this way, a P2P bitcoin/USD exchange could be created with almost no overhead and no worse security then bitcoin itself. Exchanges can occur between individuals who do not trust each other so long as they both trust the colored coin redeemer. So the exchange is essentially only holding the backing fiat (or PM). This therefore requires less trust then today's exchanges which need to hold both your fiat and btc. And it is of course much more secure because redemptions can happen much less often (and therefore with more security checking) then trades. There's no "exchange" to hack in to, no database listing everybody's balance (outside of the blockchain). However, I think there would probably be greater risk (temptation) of the exchanger going fractional... but this risk certainly exists in today's exchanges.
But unfortunately the colored-coin is such an ugly hack into the bitcoin network. It would be better to add a 64 bit integer denominating the currency type to each txn line (or maybe to each public/private key -- and extend a wallet to handle multiple private keys one per currency type), set bitcoin to be currency type 0, and add some kind of "overlay" network where people can create a new currency. Hmm... this is making me think out loud. I wonder if the "currency" type could be itself a public/private key allowing a contract describing the "currency" to be signed and all clients to reject any "genesis" transactions that are not signed by that currencies' private key.
|
|
|
|
goxxing again awesome spike to 13.70 that never happen That happens when the price shoots up in a different currency. Judging from the action, it looks like there's quite a bit of buying pressure from across the pond. Arbitrage bots will smooth things out. no, thats whats not supposed to happen. i was sitting there watching all these prices fire off on time and sales up to 13.725 on Clark Moody w/o the ask side changing at all with asks from 13.59 on up. Correct, this is not supposed to happen. Its a bug and mtgox hasn't bothered fixing it. gads, what an idiot (gox). the shorts have just been given a free gift. Are you sure its a bug with gox? Maybe its with clark moody. You can get the "ticker" stream from Gox but that's just for eye candy. You should instead grab the trades stream which specifies what currency each trade is in. There seems to be a LOT of multi-currency activity (EUR, JPY, PLN) tonight just at a quick glance, at least a lot of trades, maybe not a lot of volume... |
|
|
|
I'm just here for to call out people on their bullshit
I hope you keep this hobby in perspective, because if weren't careful you could quickly lose control and spend all day and even then you would STILL miss so much bullshit He has significantly more posts then days bitcoin has been in existence. There can be no talk of perspective where smoothie (or cypherdoc for that matter) is concerned |
|
|
|
|
I toured a PCBA (PBC assembly) USA shop 2.5 years ago and even then the entire line is run by robots. There is a guy who keeps the chips feeding into the pick-and-place machine and another at the end sitting at a computer the shows live snapshots of photos of the chips soldered onto the board. The computer only shows a few snapshots per 10-20 boards -- the optical system can automatically determine the quality of the soldering for most pads.
Then there are maybe 10-20 "rework" stations where squint-eyed old retired ladies fix any issues with tiny solder irons. I remember months ago that some people in these forums actually laughed at photo of a grandma holding up a BFL board but believe me that person was probably the best!
The CEO explained that the cost was about 4-5 times that of overseas and complained that the overhead wasn't the salaries but compliance with all the rules and regulations... but that is one single operator so maybe their mileage differs.
Personally, I've discovered in some forays into PCB assembly that one key cost factor is actually import taxes into China. You have to pay 20-30% of the value of the the CHIPS just to import them into China to get them soldered onto a board and then sent right back out of the country! So the boards that tend to be fabricated domestically are ones with very high value chips. This observation is consistent with what I saw coming off the line during my tour. While the consumer market is overrun with really cheap chips, $500-$2000 single chips certainly still exist in telecom applications.
So this guy seems way off the mark to me...
|
|
|
|
oh, btw, this is just another example of DEFLATION coming to Apple prices.
Maybe. I prefer to hope that people are just realizing that Apple sucks as a company and their products suck as well. I have no idea how they got as big as they are selling such horrible crap. I guess there is a huge market of idiots that pay too much for inferior products.  I have a Mac. It has been a very nice computer, I have been using it for several years. The problem I am now running into is that some programs are only available for the most recent version of the Mac. (like bitcoin-qt). So I am no longer able to upgrade the programs which I have, and a couple programs I wanted to add to my computer I was unable to add. Overall, my computer still works, but when I do get around to upgrading to a new computer, my next computer will probably be running linux. i think this may happen to me as well but i'm still looking for a linux laptop with a nice trackpad. so no one here has tried out a System 76? Almost any laptop these days run linux so you can buy one and drop windows. Search "Ubuntu <mfg> <model> <#>". Like this: Ubuntu dell inspiron 5720. And you'll get this: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201202-10403/ You may even manage to get a refund, but the volumes & the $ mfgs receive for preloading adware and crapware tend to cancel out any extra cost. I run Ubuntu/Fedora/Mint/Redhat native on my daily dev 6 core AMD desktop and am stuck running Win on my quad core, 8 thread laptop because I need to use Webex. But this machine can run 4 simultaneous Linux virtual machine instances (to execute simulations of the sort of tightly coupled distributed systems used in telecom networks). [BTW, a virtual machine is a complete OS running inside a window (or full screen) of another OS]. You might consider using virtual machines instead of a different laptop just because its really nice to be able to pop from OS to OS. Run isolated linux virtual machines for your wallet and/or trading software and don't install anything else on them. And its a way to dip your toe into the linux world without having to lug around two laptops. See www.virtualbox.org for the software needed. PM me if you need some purchasing advice. |
|
|
|
|
order depth on gox usd above 5 was the highest ever at 200000+ coins. And a huge amount of depth materialized during the event.
|
|
|
|
Only 12k? There was a 1k dump on intersango's euro exchange and more than 0.4k on bitcoin.de. Most other currencies and exchanges got a piece of the action which suggests that 12k is a fair bit south of the real figure.
yes it was more like 3 10k dumps so a total of 30k. I'm guessing no panic because no bad news and a lot of good... who cares if some bear wants out? |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
