If bitcoin goes mainstream, then we might all be early adopters. Maybe in 5 years people will be saying, "there are people out there who have 100,000 mBTC just because they got on board early, would things be better if we just restarted?"
Bitcoin is only here because people before us carried the banner. I know this is a hypothetical, to getting into the nitty gritty details is pointless, but surely you have to see that the reason why bitcoin is growing and has lasted this long is because of early adopters. They took a gamble, and it is paying off. We, the midterm adopters, are also taking a gamble. But the odds have changes, and success is more likely then it was a year ago, so you have to put more in to get a share of the pie.
This is pretty much the same as investing in a company. Early investors might get millions of shares cheap. But no later investor would say, "man, two years ago I could have bought 100 times the shares for the same amount, this is something that should be addressed." That is because they understand that investing earlier was more of a risk. Sure it was cheaper, but payout was way more uncertain. Why can't bitcoin enthusiasts understand the same thing? You make a lot of good points, I appreciate the response Damien. I suppose my view was a little short sighted and quite hoenstly whether people believe me or not it wasn't a post out of greed or envy. It was simply out of concern. |
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Why is this topic so taboo that it can't be discussed even hypothetically? What I'm trying to say is if you believe in Bitcoin as a viable long-term P2P currency then you need to identify the inherent risks to its longevity. Shouldn't the fact that a very small portion of the overall community having the ability to bring BTC to its knees be at least something to discuss?
I don't understand why early-adopters need to be treated as gods and any sort of topic that comes up is automatically met with, "oh yeah just another guy trying to get rich off them." As if my ONE thread can somehow re-write history...
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Let me start off by saying this is not a thread about "early-adopter" envy. They took the risks and had the foresight. High risk should reap high reward.
Now, I don't have exact numbers so I'll have to use hypothetical ones in my example. Lets assume that there are currently 100 early adopters and the Bitcoin community is roughly 5,000 to date.
Would Bitcoin be better off, in the long-term, if it were to restart tomorrow? The reason I ask is because the MtGox hack essentially showed that a small (~8%) portion of outstanding Bitcoins can unstabilize the market so greatly to the point where it reduced the price to $0.01.
5,000 people is not very much should Bitcoin ever become widely accepted. But the distribution of BTC's would be significantly greater with 5,000 early adopters compared to 100. Essentially with a greater distribution, it would take more people going rogue to cause a massive disruption to the Bitcoin economy. If Bitcoin truly is not a ponzi scheme or pure speculation, wouldn't it's ability to surive be improved by having the outstanding BTC's more evenly distributed?
Also, if you think about it, to a certain degree early adopters are only "paper rich." Lets say for example that early adopters in aggregate hold 2 million of the outstanding Bitcoins (again hypothetical #). This would give them a current worth of roughly $28 million USD. However, as we have already seen, 500,000BTC's can bring the price down to zero. So really, there's no current market to sell those $2 million coins. The price would drop substantially before you are able to liquidate so your true wealth is actually much lower.
Again, I'm not really advocating taking away anything from the early adopters (as if I had that ability anyway), I just have to wonder, if we're really talking about Bitcoin as a greater good, wouldn't it be better off with a wider distribution?
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Because nothing like this has ever been done before. There is definitely intrinsic value in a commodity that is not controlled by any central authority, can not be easily counterfeited or subverted and can be sent in real time to anyone in the world with internet access. The promise of bitcoin is very real, and if this service was provided by a company I could see not just myself but plenty of others investing in such an outfit pre and post IPO.
This being a distributed grass-roots effort rather than a corporation doesn't change things.
But that is still a possible future. The current situation is now. One is potentially bright, the second not quite so much. Sometimes even promising companies make poor short term investment opportunities and excellent shorts.
I think of this as a brilliant tech startup where the founders have 90% of the stock, and the investors providing 100% of the capital have 10%. With the stock price determined completely by the company cash on hand (which is 100% infused by investors) and currently at a near all time high, several thousand % higher than a few months ago. Oh yes, the founders able to sell their shares at any time. With more stock being issued at a steady rate (albeit a smaller and smaller fraction of the float).
Would you be one of the investors now or wait for a better opportunity? I'm not. Of course there is risk of never getting on board -- but then, one of the major cannons of trading (if not investing) is to never fall in love with a stock. We share very similar viewpoints on Bitcoin. Since you brought up counterfeiting, I thought I'd get your thoughts on one of my other big concerns with Bitcoin in the long term. We currently have an argument over what exactly Bitcoin is, is it a currency, a commodity, an asset, a store of value, etc. I happen to believe it's intellectual property. Here's the kicker that really concerns me, it's intellectual property with no patent protection. Not only does it not have patent protection, it's open source. With very low barriers to entry. You mention that if this idea were done by a company you could see yourself investing in the IPO. The thing is, there's really nothing stopping a company or any individual from copying Bitcoin's model. Some will argue that Bitcoin has the advantage of being first to market. While that's true, Bitcoin is still very much in its infancy and hasn't built up much of a reputation in the mainstream to rely on this time advantage. Besides, first to market doesn't really matter when one can take a concept, tweak it, and make it better. Ask MySpace. What are your thoughts? |
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True that and really BTC has a huge ROI compared to any other investments right now. Depends on when you invested. If you did so at $17, let alone $30, your ROI is pretty bad right now. |
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It's exempt from capital gains, not income tax.
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So....what's wrong with saying gold isn't money? Gold isn't money. People don't exchange it for goods and services, people buy it (with actual money) and hold onto it. Just like other assets, e.g. silver, oil, buildings, paintings, etc. I know goldbugs love bashing the Fed, but this is just silly. Have you been to Utah recently? Gold is money.. and has been for the last 6000 years of our history, and somehow you know better? What is money:  That is not a "what is money" diagram, it's John Exter's inverted pyramid. The pyramid has many layers of asset classes graded according to safety, from the safest and least prolific at bottom (gold) to the least safe and most prolific at the top (small business). The premise being that in a "flight to safety" scenario, people will rush down the pyramid towards ever increasingly safer but scarcer assets. |
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Watched it quite a while ago. Must have been over a year now. At the very least, he made his followers a lot of money in gold. |
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These bots... are they Auto or Decepticon? Maybe both fighting each other?
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I admit I hastily misread and consequently entered a short-tempered response, and have thus withdrawn my previous post.
In turn, I have removed my short-tempered response to your response.  |
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Okay so this is my first attempt to do an actual transaction with Bitcoin. Lets show that there is a legit market for goods to be purchased!
The game is used, but I keep my discs in very good condition. Comes with all 3 discs, manual and cover. Shipping to anywhere in the US included in the price.
No price set in stone, best offer at this point (although I reserve the right to refuse any lowball offers). Feel free to post here or PM me an offer/questions. I will ship within 1 day of payment receipt (unless its a Sunday obviously).
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Thanks. I will be carrying a Visa, MC, and AMEX. Diversity is very important. I was in Venezuela and needed some cash, where I was wouldn't take Visa, but they took MC. I'll have some USD on me, maybe I should pick up some Euros and Gold?
Why would you bring physical gold? Are you going to shave off a sliver to pay for your meal? Nothing about your trip seems well thought out. Bullion is sold in amounts as small as 1/10th of an ounce. While that's quite a bit to pay for a meal, it's small enough to cover other expenses such as travel and lodging. |
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How are they different? They are hoarded, people are making absurd claims on their value, and there is no underlying usable value other than speculation, and no institutions of any force that would be invested to prop their value. At least I can snuggle with a beanie baby. I see the parallels you are trying to draw. Beanie babies, like POGS, baseball cards, Yo-Yos, and numerous other collectibles had a substantial rise and fall as the fad faded. Rather than a collectible, I like to think of Bitcoin as intellectual property. An experiment in the feasibility of a P2P currency. I agree that the absurd claims of value, government conspiracy fanatics, and immature posts by some in the community are doing nothing to further the Bitcoin cause. But there are a good number of people here who have a rational idea of what Bitcoins may or may not become. Those that think they'll be buying a pound of gold, a home, or whatever with 1 BTC... just let them go. They've reached a state of delusion that you simply cannot get through. Not worth the effort. |
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Assuming this: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=27166.0 is the expected value of Bitcoin at the end of the year, over 50% of the community believes price will be in excess of $36. Over 22% believe the price will be greater than $100. Yet Bitcoin currently sits at $14, substantially lower than the general consensus. While your theories, similar to the efficient-market hypothesis, seem nice on paper are impractical when applied to real life. |
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Suggestions, Requests, Feedback, Other?
Language barrier may be a problem especially if you are expecting to only be paid in Bitcoins. You'll need to be able to explain what Bitcoins are and how to obtain them.... in multiple languages. My suggestion to you is to take some cash/travelers checks and a credit card with you just in case. You can try to survive on Bitcoins but have some backup so you don't get stranded somewhere. |
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I'm sorry, but this thread doesn't ring true at all. 90% missing - computer froze - backups won't load - sad story about wife losing her job - no mention of -rescan.
I've got a 2+ month old copy of my wallet.dat, and I'd bet good BTC that I could recover my current balance with that copy.
Maybe he just doesn't know how to properly restore. He didn't post a BTC address nor does he have a signature with one so I don't think he's trying to get any coins out of the community. |
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The banks have more liabilities than assets, which is why they get taken closed down by the FDIC in the first place. Yes, other banks buy the deposits, AFTER the FDIC adds enough cash to make the purchase worthwhile. You really should read the press releases that detail how much the bank failure costs the fund. More info at calculatedrisk.comMaybe it's my work browser but your link takes me to some foreclosure website which doesn't look like what you intended to show. Washington Mutual was the largest bank failure in history but the cost to the agency was zero. Yes, some of the bank failures cost the Deposit Insurance Fund but in turn all other banks pay higher premiums. If failures exceed what's available in the DIF, the FDIC has a line of credit with the Treasury it can tap into. I believe the only time the FDIC tapped into the line was in the early 1990s. The bank failures we are seeing right now are small, local banks for the most part. Nothing like what we were seeing ~2008. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the FDIC has the means to cover a systemic bank failure, they don't. But the current bank failures are not really putting the FDIC in jeopardy. If that were the case, we'd already see a run on banks. |
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So i think your sentence "People are practically climbing into the windows of the White House to buy US treasury bonds that carry pretty low (but so far guaranteed) profit. The US could sell more then they are now quite easily and find buyers." is an exageration on the attractivity of US bonds (at the current yields). What, in your opinion, is the more attractive option? All that capital needs to go somewhere. |
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I'm a software engineer, not a finance guy. Is there a name for it when a stock / security / commodity seems to keep bouncing off a certain price floor? (like 14.0, in this case)
Support. Edit: Gah beaten to the punch |
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I would not use PayPal to purchase Bitcoins. You can read the wiki if you want a detailed answer as to why. Don't know what Webmoney is, sorry. Debit card is also not very feasible right now.
The best place at the moment is the exchanges such as MtGox, Tradehill, and CampBX.
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