Right. Gold is 19.30 g/cc Tungsten is 19.25 g/cc So we're looking at a difference of 0.26%. On a ten troy ounce gold bar that's 311.25*.0026 = 0.81 grams if the whole thing is tungsten. Since some of it is real gold, the bar will weigh roughly a half gram more than it is supposed to, on a 311 gram bar. What is the normal mass tolerance on a pamp suisse gold bar? |
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Use gold coins, preferably those under an ounce. Harder to drill, more work, less benefit, greater likelihood of getting caught than using 10 oz bars.
I am not 100% certain, but I would imagine that tungsten-filled coins would sound differently when dropped on a glass table than real gold coins.
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It pains me to see the word "fiat" used repeatedly this way. Words have precise meanings. The word "fiat" means "by government decree". Fiat money is money that is made so by government decree. It can be paper, gold, bitcoins, notched sticks, or giant stones. If the government of Finland declares Bitcoin to be their national currency, bitcoins would technically be a fiat currency in Finland. "Fiat" does not mean representative money, such as notes, checks, or electronic credits. A private bank could hypothetically issue a note without a government decree, and it would still be "worthless paper", but it would not be "fiat".
I consider 'fiat money' to be money that is *created* by government decree, not merely used by order of government decree. And thus if Finland declared Bitcoin to be their national currency, it would not be fiat money by my definition. Likewise if the US government declared gold and silver coins to be legal tender they would not be fiat money. |
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Who runs blockchain.info ? Is he a poster here?
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This sounds much better than the silly assertion that the right this moment highest bid is the value, since somehow in the days before 24/7 trading stocks and bonds didn't drop to zero value during the hours exchanges were closed nor did money drop to zero value outside of business hours (except maybe in munchies-value to middle of the night stoners thinking the stuff is useless since it cannot buy munchies right now).
Isn't this part of what the concept of "liquidity" is about?
Just because I cannot sell a hundred million dollar estate at midnight in the middle of a bank holiday weekend doesn't mean the estate is worthless, it just means such estates have somewhat less liquidity than, say, munchies or hits of "acid"...
-MarkM-
Well, in a narrow sense, for example, if you need medicine right now or you're going to die, and no one who has medicine is accepting Bitcoins/dollars/whatever, the Bitcoins/dollars/whatever are completely worthless. In a broader sense they are worth what they would sell for when more bidders are in communication with you (if there are indeed more bidders somewhere else) This example also details how value is different for each person - there is no "real value" as the thread title suggests. If the person needing the medicine right now can't get anything for his Bitcoins, they are worthless to him, but if someone who doesn't need medicine can wait to sell them for other valued things, the Bitcoins are of great value to him. |
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What if I was unable to buy USD for BTC to buy loaf of bread? It wouldn't mean that 1 BTC = 0 USD.
If you were selling to a global market, and nobody would give you anything for a Bitcoin, that is precisely what it would mean: 1 BTC = $0 |
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the value of Bitcoin is based on the soundness of the Bitcoin network and the effort to create one bitcoin.
maybe to be measured with the amount of transactions and the network hashrate...
And what equation would you use to translate transactions and hashrate into dollars? |
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The only way to determine the real value of 1 bitcoin is to auction it to the highest bidder.
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Obviously it will be announced at the conference, yes. Unfortunately, with all the built-up hype, it is almost guaranteed to be a major anti-climactic let-down.
It's the setup for a classic profit situation: Buy on Rumor, Sell on News. Unless the news is less exciting than the rumor, in which case you lose. |
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Note that coinbase transactions require 100 confirmations before you can spend them.
(In bitcoind you have to wait 120 confirmations for coinbase transactions.)
If the BTC you are spending has just been mined you have to wait longer before you can spend them. This is a restriction of the bitcoin network.
(The reason for this is coinbases do not survive reorgs).
My understanding is that 'coinbase' transactions involve newly mined Bitcoins? If so, that was not the case in my issue - the coins had been on my laptop wallet for months. But perhaps this is related to my problem. Maybe Bitcoin Wallet thinks they are coinbase transactions when they are not? I think having the same 100-confirmation point would be too much of a coincidence. |
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I realize that Transaction Details are experimental, but here's an interesting thing about that: As I said, I sent 20 BTC to my Bitcoin Wallet address last night. I see this transaction on Bitcoin Wallet under "Received". I also see it on blockchain.info
But when I try to view Transaction Details for this transaction on Bitcoin Wallet, it shows a "Receiver" address which is NOT my Android Bitcoin Wallet address.
When I sent my Bitcoins from my laptop address L to my Wallet address W, it sent the remainder of L to address R.
When I look at the Transaction Details, it shows "Receiver" as address R. It should be showing address W.
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How can it still be waiting for confirmation on that much Bitcoin when the 20 and 10 BTC transactions in last night have 90+ confirmations?
Because Bitcoin Wallet for Android keeps the blockchain local to the phone, and needs to catch up to the rest of the network on it's own. This is the primary reason that I've switched to BitcoinSpinner, which uses a divided wallet method & keeps the blockchain on the BitconSpinner server instead. But my Bitcoin Wallet is completely synchronized - so it should be seeing all 90+ confirmations on the bitcoins in my wallet. |
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I just tried to sell someone Bitcoin in person and Bitcoin Wallet didn't work for me.
When I open the program on my Droid 4, it say BTC 32.4something
I sent my Bitcoin Wallet 20 and 10 BTC last night. These two transactions have 94 and 99 confirmations according to blockchain.info.
But when I just tried to give 32 BTC to the person I was selling to, I write in under "Amount to Pay: 32" and an error message popped up that said (and still says) "Available for spending BTC2.83 (BTC 29.6489 waiting for confirmation)"
How can it still be waiting for confirmation on that much Bitcoin when the 20 and 10 BTC transactions in last night have 90+ confirmations?
The two transactions into my wallet last night also have full green circles on the program, which I thought indicated that they were fully confirmed.
Please help!
edit: I noticed now that it allows me to spend these bitcoins, right when they have passed 100 confirmations. Are 100 confirmations really necessary? That seems way too high - 5 or 6 are OK for the main client, why would 100 be required for Android Bitcoin Wallet?
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linking an account to an apple id would scale*
*i have no idea whether gavin et al, almost certainly including the CIA, have done a deal with apple to include a bitcoin friendly keypair in every embedded secure element in the iphone 5 out next week, using the well established apple id as a credential to access the keypair to transfer funds or make purchases on the app store.**
** no really i haven't, but wouldn't it be a good idea if they had. would save apple a buck or two in fees too. can't say it would add stability to the bitcoin price in the short term tho.
There is absolutely nothing that could possibly add stability to the bitcoin price in the short term because stability won't happen until we get well past $100/BTC. Anything less is too small a market to be stable in an era of fiat money printing. How did you come up with the $100 mark for stability? Emphasis added ^ There is no magical point at $100, but with roughly 10 million BTC out there, $100/BTC would mean $1 billion total (making some wildly inaccurate assumptions about being able to actually sell all the bitcoins for spot price). That's starting to be significant enough to be a little more stable. Definitely more stable than the measly $100 million we've been bouncing around near. I disagree. Even at $100/BTC, speculators would still be trying to figure out the 'true value' of BTC. Their idea of where that true value is could range from less than $100 to thousands of dollars per BTC. That is still a huge range for radical sentiment fluctuations. Plenty of room left for 'panic' buying and selling. When at higher numbers, such as $100/BTC, going up/down a dollar or 2 isn't a big deal. But when you are at $11 and it drops to $9, that's big. Having it at higher amounts/BTC will cause it to be less volatile. I think that's how it works anyways. I'm no economist, just my opinion. I know of no reason to suspect that Bitcoin at $100/BTC would have greater or smaller percentage swings than it does at $11/BTC. If the price currently swings on average 8% per day ($.88) it will probably continue to swing at 8% per day ($8) at the higher price. What will reduce volatility is when a greater fraction of people use Bitcoin for buying and selling goods and services and a smaller fraction use Bitcoin for speculation. edit: Look at the price of gold. Is it particularly more stable at ~$1650 than it was at $400? |
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Sorry, but that's flawed reasoning. You are saying you trust people more because they have proved they are not trustworthy. By that reasoning you should trust bitcoinica with everything you have.
+1, unfortunately. My life experience suggests that people actually don't learn lessons and instead repeat prior behavior if they can get away with it. (This is not a personal judgment about any particular person.) The operators of Bitfloor should have learned their lesson from the hacks of all the other Bitcoin exchanges. That they did not points to either gross negligence or criminal intent, neither of which should instill confidence in anyone. Bullshit. That's like saying that because a car wreck has happened before, every future car wreck points to "gross negligence or criminal intent." How Roman resolves the current situation can certainly lead to further confidence in him. Holding unencrypted wallet files on online computers in a business where you know you are likely to be a target is either gross negligence or it's a fake story to cover criminal intent. To extend your car analogy, if you had seen many of your friends die in car crashes from not wearing a seatbelt, and you drive without a seatbelt and allow your children to ride with you without a seatbelt, you are grossly negligent. You are working on very limited information and yet you're speaking in absolutes. Sounds like you're just here to bash him, or you love speaking in unsupported hyperbole. He admitted he had an unencrypted wallet file on an online computer.There's no excuse for someone with fifty bitcoins to have that, let alone someone with twenty-five thousand, on a (relatively) high-profile website. |
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Sorry, but that's flawed reasoning. You are saying you trust people more because they have proved they are not trustworthy. By that reasoning you should trust bitcoinica with everything you have.
+1, unfortunately. My life experience suggests that people actually don't learn lessons and instead repeat prior behavior if they can get away with it. (This is not a personal judgment about any particular person.) The operators of Bitfloor should have learned their lesson from the hacks of all the other Bitcoin exchanges. That they did not points to either gross negligence or criminal intent, neither of which should instill confidence in anyone. Bullshit. That's like saying that because a car wreck has happened before, every future car wreck points to "gross negligence or criminal intent." How Roman resolves the current situation can certainly lead to further confidence in him. Holding unencrypted wallet files on online computers in a business where you know you are likely to be a target is either gross negligence or it's a fake story to cover criminal intent. To extend your car analogy, if you had seen many of your friends die in car crashes from not wearing a seatbelt, and you drive without a seatbelt and allow your children to ride with you without a seatbelt, you are grossly negligent. |
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Sorry, but that's flawed reasoning. You are saying you trust people more because they have proved they are not trustworthy. By that reasoning you should trust bitcoinica with everything you have.
+1, unfortunately. My life experience suggests that people actually don't learn lessons and instead repeat prior behavior if they can get away with it. (This is not a personal judgment about any particular person.) The operators of Bitfloor should have learned their lesson from the hacks of all the other Bitcoin exchanges. That they did not points to either gross negligence or criminal intent, neither of which should instill confidence in anyone. |
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If this was real, they would have provided some kind of proof they possess these documents. Perhaps the information from a non-incriminating line, which would only be known by Romney or someone who has the documents. Kidnappers always send a photo of the kidnapped person holding today's newspaper to prove they have the person and they're alive.
Since no such evidence was shown, it is very probably a hoax.
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It's simply not believable that anyone involved enough with Bitcoin to make such a site, who has undoubtedly heard about all the other large-scale hacks, would simply leave an unencrypted wallet file worth a quarter mil lying around waiting to be hacked.
Right now, the owner should be desperately trying to convince us he didn't steal the money himself.
I have but a tiny percentage of the wealth of that wallet, and I am not smart enough to run such an exchange website, but I know enough to encrypt my fucking wallet .
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