Nevermind that that's about the best, most generous, most helpful advice you could have given anyone at almost any time in the past four years; it's just not socially OK to do.
I have been telling people about Bitcoin for more than 2 years, making them "aware" of it while trying not to push it hard, and recommending the, "not more than you can afford to lose" approach. I have always believed that Bitcoin is just too important to ignore, and has too much potential to not invest SOMETHING in it, even it it is a very small amount. Investing $100 at any point during late-2011 and 2012 would have yielded between about a $1500-$10000 return as of today. That's crazy! All in all, I'm sure that I have told no less than 40 people about it and not one person has bought in. It actually makes me kind of sad. Don't be sad. If you brought the story correctly, they 'll probably buy in a year earlier than they would have without your advice. It takes some getting used to the idea. |
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Referencing Tulips.
I hate it when they mention the tulips. Makes em feel so smug and smart, while it requires no critical thinking whatsoever. I like tulips. I will plant a bunch in my yard because I have plenty of money to do so thanks to Bitcoin.  I agree. It gets so old to hear the same thing over and over. Hopefully this time they come up with something new at least. I don't know, they 'll have to get creative: "beanie babies", "monopoly money", "somebody buy my own version of bitcoin for 3 million dollars?", "bitcon", "shitcoin" and "buttcoin" are already taken. Guess we'll find out soon enough |
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Referencing Tulips.
I hate it when they mention the tulips. Makes em feel so smug and smart, while it requires no critical thinking whatsoever. |
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You beat me to it  I think the reason store-of-value as a price driver isn't talked about more is because it's sort of taboo. To those who are less familiar with Bitcoin and its potential, it makes Bitcoin sound like a ponzi scheme the more store-of-value functionality is emphasized. So there's a taboo on pushing that angle. Of course there's always a taboo on saying, "Buy this thing (which I, uh, also just happen to own) because it's going to go up massively in price!" Nevermind that that's about the best, most generous, most helpful advice you could have given anyone at almost any time in the past four years; it's just not socially OK to do. People also naturally tend to speculate, whereas merchant adoption doesn't come without proactive efforts, at least in these early days. So there's all around a large bias toward hush-hush on the store-of-value aspects. The problem is that people then get confused about the investment aspects and what's driving the price. But socially, that's not considered something you have any obligation to help people with, and people often aren't very grateful even when you do help them and even when you can prove they would have been wealthy by now if they had just followed your advice. The human mind just doesn't work that way. I think merchant adoption is an important prerequisite to the "store of value" function though. It gives bitcoin the initial legitimacy it needs to survive. Once confidence is built that you will be able to utilize your bitcoins in a meaningful way, then it makes sense to save in bitcoins. |
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I think it's a myth that Bitcoin's value mostly stems from transaction value or merchant adoption. The real driving force is long-term investment. Or rather, the value does stem from transaction value and merchant adoption, but not present transaction value or merchant adoption but future transaction value and merchant adoption. One of the things that investors do is drive up the price of things that will serve a valuable function in the future, since most people won't buy them now since they're not valuable for that purpose now.
So there's a complex relationship through time between store-of-value pricing and medium-of-exchange pricing, with store-of-value/investment being by far the bigger of the two, even though it itself is largely powered by prospects for eventual medium-of-exchange pricing. It's that kind of complex interplay through time. Nevertheless, there's a reason why the old holders don't sell much: they believe in the future potential, and they know that even if it takes years to get there the price would have to appreciate wildly fast to be ready by then.
You beat me to it |
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my personal opinion is that bubbles should be spaced out longer than the time period between the last 2 bubbles as it takes longer for new innovations to bring about new growth curves. the time period between the last 2 bubbles was about 21 months. it is been only 6 months and people are already expecting another bubble event...
But so much has changed. look at this tx graph https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=the # of processed tx is a proxy for utility, earlier this year we got rid of dust tx and you could see the decrease, and now an increase which means that some new value has been brought in but we are not talking 10X yet. in the last bubble the magnitudinal (10x) tx increase preceded the massive (10x) price range shift I agree with you on the fact that I think it is too soon for another bubble (although the current price action seems to disagree). However, I don't think number of transactions is the only measure for utility. It measures bitcoins utility as a medium of exchange (although people can obviously mess with the metric to try and influence the market), but not bitcoins utility as a store of value. When people are convinced that bitcoin will be around in the future, they will feel safe to park some percentage of their wealth into a "bitcoin savings account", also known as "hoarding". To me, this is a legitimate use for your bitcoins. |
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And no, looking in log-scale is not "cheating". Going from 1 to 1.8 is just as spectacular as going from 100 to 180.
This is false. Think about it in terms of "people involved" and "money volume necessary to cause a price level increase", and you will see $100 to $180 is much different than $1 to $1.8 Think about it in terms of exponential growth, as in exponential amount of an "people involved" each bringing along individual "money volume necessary to cause a price level increase", and you will see $100 to $180 is actually pretty similar to $1 to $1.8 Exponential increases in people and money flow are not easy things to accomplish. Such occurences are the exception, not the rule (don't fall prey to survivor bias). That isn't to say it won't happen, just acknowledging the facts. It is when you're still tiny and have network effects via myriad channels. This, there is a reason why adoption curves are S-shaped. |
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Added the signature
1v.io/Spiff
Signing up for another month (awaiting payout). |
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Sometimes my lendable balance will say, for example, $123.45. When I go to make a loan offer of $123.45, it will tell me I have an insufficient balance. If I make it $123.44, then it goes through.
+1 on this. No biggie, but costs a few more clicks every other day. The nicest way would be a "max" button which enters the whole available amount. +1 on the "max" button |
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Ya I have two copies of my paper btc wallets hidden in different places. One is very hidden the other is in my fridge with instructions to anyone who cleans it out upon my sudden demise. But I think I am going to buy a letter/number punch and get my keys down onto metal.
Don't disclose this sort of information on a public forum! It's called security through obscurity for a reason. Maybe he is trying to lure people into believing it's all that he has, who knows? He is hoping you will clean his fridge for him.  |
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Yeah, I wouldn't put too much hope in that article, I am pretty confident it is mostly just a reaction of the body to aging (an effect instead of the cause). Articles about "the one magic compound or pill that controls aging" are just selling stories. Nevertheless, aging IS curable, imo the best effort out there is SENS : http://sens.org/ . Sorry for going off-topic, but I have some strong opinions on the matter, and I am hoping somewhat that some of the brighter out-of-the-box thinkers that you might find here might become intrigued by this as well  . |
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You know, it's not difficult to buy something with bitcoin and immediately replenish your stash by converting an equivalent amount from fiat to bitcoin. If you're worried about spending your bitcoins.
+1, 'bitcoins are too valuable to spend' is bullshit. If they are too valuable to spend, it means the current price is too low, thus market forces would drive it up and fix that problem. |
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You are forgetting an important dynamic: Interest rates. When consumption falls, savings rise and there are thus more money to be lent out. That means that the supply of money for loans rises and the price for loans fall which is the same as the interest rate falling. That means that it becomes more attractive to invest with borrowed money and this increases efficiency (if the investment is sound) which then increases the purchasing power and thus increases consumption. Yes. Capitalism is cool!
Yah, but with bitcoin you might argue that it will increase in value constantly (not at the same pace as these days obviously, but due to increased productivity combined with a stable money supply), therefore just holding the coins without loaning them out is a viable option. Any loan would have to have a positive rate that compensates for the risk of a bad loan. Even if these rates are low, due to BTC appreciation, only loans that are able to give a significant gain in productivity/reward will be viable, thus the overall amount of loans would go down. |
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Someone made a bot which buys or sells on certain buzzwords in the BTC-E Trollbox ^^
As far as I know it lost money (was only a small amount for fun though)
Well, if it can do that reliably, they only need to flip the buy and sell commands . |
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hey guys.
Im new at this and today logged on my bitstamp account. Is there a decent way to read the order book to figure out what kinda price trend is ocming up next?
The wall charts that get posted here from time to time are the easiest way to visualize bid and ask amounts. As to whether this can help you in figuring out future prices, that is pure speculation... |
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We're on the move again.
Where? |
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I have used it for half a year to a year. So far everything has been handled correctly. They can be a bit slow on processing bets after they are resolved though (can be several days).
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Some perspective (note we're down from $172 to $164 almost 2 days ago):  Are you my long lost doppelganger? And if so, are you the evil of the good one ? |
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So,
Like 150 a day after difficulty goes up, 180 2 days later, heavy volume on MTgOX.
Is this not worrying anyone?
Who is injecting all this money anyway?
Is the ASIC producers in China trying to keep the value up to sell the miners?
It's looking like quite a bubble. And so far there is very little "Technical Analysis" type chart formatiations in the past. Maybe the daytraders are taking over?
We are losing stability here, I think.
Let me offer some perspective: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zlAnd no, looking in log-scale is not "cheating". Going from 1 to 1.8 is just as spectacular as going from 100 to 180. |
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Would be interesting to have a website where people start with an equal amount of fake USD, then they can do pretend trades based on the exchange prices, just like a stock market competition, only continuous. And of course there would be stats (all-time scores, best performance this year, ...).
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