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Please PM me.
Can pay by international wire or other methods. Urgent.
Thanks & Regards
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I have to be honest, I think the bubble is going to burst in the next 6 months.
There are some fundamental issues with bitcoin that will surface in next few months. On the other hand I have no doubt until these issues surface, the price will continue to rise.
Buyer beware!
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Which one is stronger  |
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Bitcoin Foundation: The biggest future issue with bitcoin
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* Encryption. Yes its a long way off, but the SHA256 and other algorithms required for bitcoin will be broken at some time. If bitcoin ever survives this long, when any of these algorithms are broken it could cause irreversable problems.
These algorithms can be substituted for better algorithms in a hard fork. We already have empirical evidence that bitcoin is able to survive a hard fork as long as there is broad consensus about it. If these functions are broken, it's likely that they will be broken gradually and there will be enough time to react. How long is your investment timescale? 30 years? I did some quick calculations to obtain some data to illustrate the problem for those who think scalability is something that will only be affecting bitcoin in the far off future. Source: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popularExtrapolating from the growth rate in transactions over the last 15 days which has been phenomenal (60%), I wanted to see how long it will be until the network reaches its 7 TS/Second limit. The data here is just from reading the graph by sight so may be a little inaccurate, but should provide a good estimation. Also we are not at the end of March yet - if the growth continues as it has in the last 15 days, the 15-day growth rate will therefore be higher than estimated. | Daily Transactions | Date | Growth Rate | Transactions Per Second | | 19,224 | 3/15/2013 | | 0.2 | | 31,289 | 4/1/2013 | 63% | 0.4 | | 50,926 | 4/15/2013 | | 0.6 | | 82,887 | 5/1/2013 | | 1.0 | | 134,907 | 5/15/2013 | | 1.6 | | 219,575 | 6/1/2013 | | 2.5 | | 357,381 | 6/15/2013 | | 4.1 | | 581,673 | 7/1/2013 | | 6.7 | | 946,732 | 7/15/2013 | | 11.0 | | 1,540,902 | 8/1/2013 | | 17.8 | | 2,507,974 | 8/15/2013 | | 29.0 |
As you can see, as I have calculated based on the recent high growth in transactions, if the current growth in transactions continue, by July of this year - unless there are changes in the protocol - there are going to be issues with the network , and real questions of whether a P2P distributed transaction payment system can be ever viable will be raised. I invite further comments on this. I am a holder in bitcoins so I'd like to remain optimistic that a solution to this can be agreed upon by the community before then that is not to the detriment of private investors. |
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These algorithms can be substituted for better algorithms in a hard fork.
We already have empirical evidence that bitcoin is able to survive a hard fork as long as there is broad consensus about it.
If these functions are broken, it's likely that they will be broken gradually and there will be enough time to react.
How long is your investment timescale? 30 years?
IMO - some of these issues will arise alot sooner than 30 years, I think in just the next year or 2 years. For example - there is going to have to be something done about the block size limit. However miners will not want to increase this limit, because it means less profit for them (because larger block size = less blocks mined). So maybe Bitcoin Foundation will decide to change some other aspect of the protocol to compensate for the miners - for example, they could allow the miners to 'mine' more coins. This would be good for the miners and resolve any conflict over loss of profit for the miners hence solving the block size issue, but would be bad for all private investors in bitcoin (because it would mean more coins issued above the 21m limit - which is after all just a convention in the software - therefore reducing value per coin). I'm of course speculating, but its clear that the protocol is going to have to be changed and the people who have the most influence in changing it are not the individual investors who (Im assuming) are buying and using the currency - it's the big miners and bitcoin companies who are hugely represented in and by the Bitcoin Foundation board. |
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I just spent some time considering whether to invest more in bitcoin. I spent a lot of time thinking about it , was on the point of transacting, and decided not to. I thought I'd post my reasons here for general information. No doubt they will get hounded down by all those people who have an interest in more buying of bitcoin , well who cares. I think the 1 or 2 posts by people who can make useful comments on this post is worth 100 posts of angry speculators. I'm going to spare the reasons to invest because they are widely circulated here. I'm also declaring that I have an existing holding in bitcoins.
* Scalability. The block chain limit is 1MB per block. Until this limit is removed, there is a limit on the number of transactions that can be made per second. Right now it seems we are at an average transaction usage of 0.2MB per 1MB block. When this approaches 1MB , there will be problems on the network - transactions will take a long time to be moved into blocks, leading to increasing slippage, loss of transactions. At the current growth rate in usage, assuming a 10% monthly growth rate in transaction volume, this will happen at the end of 2014.
* Encryption. Yes its a long way off, but the SHA256 and other algorithms required for bitcoin will be broken at some time. If bitcoin ever survives this long, when any of these algorithms are broken it could cause irreversable problems.
* Community. These issues (mainly scalability) are being discussed at length on the technical forums. Yet no solution has been found. Or rather *agreed on* - at least as far as I can see in these forums. Assuming the issue with scalability can be addressed in the form of maybe expanding the block size limit, then good for bitcoin. However this just brings up a further issue of an ever increasing block chain size. However let's ignore this for the moment and assume that the (exponential) past increases in bandwidth and storage along with time will make continue into the future making this a non issue. There seem to be multiple technical issues that may/will arrive in the future that as far as I can see have not been addressed. AFAIK there is the Bitcoin Foundation, a collection of those people who are most invested in bitcoin, who will work towards addressing these issues. However if they are not addressed, bitcoin will not continue working. So a bet on bitcoin is betting that these issues will be solved and therefore the effectiveness of the Bitcoin Foundation. Well I'm not sure of how this Foundation works - Im sure that they will make good decisions regarding the architecture given that they are all involved in it so heavily. However the question is, will their decision making be good for them and the ordinary bitcoin investor who holds bitcoins, or just good for them.
Sorry to post this, I know its a negative outlook. I welcome your comments.
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Hi guys Don't know if anyone has been watching but the number of transactions graph (which is maybe one of the key interesting fundamental indicators) has recently spiked upwards. Interesting development - maybe related to the news items recently / Cyprus? https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popularCheers, |
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Another reason to sell Yahoo!
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rPEfX7bks6ZLqhZvhL7YrdMTVHTFV1Bkza
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Difficult , so difficult to say how its going to pan out. I'll say one thing though. With the dot com boom and bust, a lot of companies were selling themselves based on future predictions and fundamentals that did not exist. The infrastructure , for one , to support exponential usage (fast internet connections , mass customer usage of the net) did not exist - making their predictions flawed. Many of the business models were valid, its just their financial predictions based on the internet adoption at the time did not make sense. IMO, with bitcoin its a bit different, just because the technology is already in existance (up to a point) and has gained a significant amount of usage. There are a number of indicators that show the technology is being used alot. (That's excluding Satoshi Dice and the large increase in price per coin, which has skewed the numbers a bit). https://blockchain.info/chartsHowever there are a number of risk factors that are embedded in this that may or may not be accounted for with the current price. Certainly it is not at all certain whether bitcoin will ever gain mass adoption or usage. I think more attention should be given to the technical side. Scalability in particular is going to be an issue very soon. I'm not really too big on technical analysis per se - I think that the charts do show some interesting information but it's just one part of the picture. |
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Im trying to get an API key to use MtGox with some bitcoin trading software. I log into my account , go to 'Security Center' , go to 'Advanced API Key Creation' Then fill in the name, check the boxes , press 'Create Key' Then nothing happens  I tried on Google Chrome & Firefox (using Mac OS) Is there a better way to do this? |
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Its just the weekend..... things slow down a bit because the volume is less
Plus its just amateurs playing with the exchanges
Excuse me for asking, but who isn't an amateur in this market?? Well there are some professional traders who are active in the market (ie. people who trade for a living). There are also some VC's, registered companies and hedge funds who trade. AFAIK these people mostly trade during the week not at the weekends. You'll see things are more stable during the week for these reasons. These people are not likely to dump their entire holdings in 15 minutes, for example. They are more rational in their trading (ie. they have a trading plan). Yes, a small minority of professional traders probably exists and and a small hedge fund or two (Malta, etc).....it looks as though the Malta fund is simply a vehicle aimed at institutional investors (who will simply buy and hold), other hedge funds, and, certainly more than anything, HNWIs. Likely that HNWIs will be the bulk of their investors as institutional money is largely much too conversation for direct BTC investment. So HNWIs (who may or may not be professionals) will be calling their own trades through the secondary market (via fund shares). This fund does not look to be discretionary.....so the fund itself is only buying/selling based on client interest in their fund, not based on any sort of strategy. But, yeah....my point is that 95%+ of investors/traders in this market are not professionals. And does a professional BTC trader even exist?  Well this is my opinion having watched the market closely for the past few weeks. Yes these traders do exist , because I have seen them active and posting on these forums , I have read news articles about them (eg. http://reut.rs/H5N04G). IMO they are mostly on the buy side. I say this in part because the pattern of buying is very clever , whilst the selling is very stupid. Having spent some time watching the order book, it seems the people buying are mostly buying slow - in small chunks regularly over a number of days. The people selling are selling in large chunks, quickly all at once. Thats one of the reasons Im bullish about bitcoin right now. My opinion is the clever people, the pro's, with the big money, are on the buy side. The amateurs panicking about the price are the ones selling. Also please note, when I last checked there were nearly 350,000 accounts on MtGox. The market is large now, for that reason alone there are bound to be at least a few pros out there. Disclaimer: this is my opinion only, I am not a professional, please do not shoot me and also please do your own analysis first before trading! |
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Its just the weekend..... things slow down a bit because the volume is less
Plus its just amateurs playing with the exchanges
Excuse me for asking, but who isn't an amateur in this market?? Well there are some professional traders who are active in the market (ie. people who trade for a living). There are also some VC's, registered companies and hedge funds who trade. AFAIK these people mostly trade during the week not at the weekends. You'll see things are more stable during the week for these reasons. These people are not likely to dump their entire holdings in 15 minutes, for example. They are more rational in their trading (ie. they have a trading plan). |
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Its just the weekend..... things slow down a bit because the volume is less
Plus its just amateurs playing with the exchanges
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It will only crash if serious bad news comes in. Otherwise, there is no other way but up with perhaps temporary hickups or horizontal movements allowing the market to catch up with the breakneck speed.
It would take REALLY bad news. The recent problems with the fork chain didn't do it.
A gov ban on bitcoin would have some effect, but the recently issued finCEN ruling actually shows that an US ban is not imminent, providing further support for BTC going mainstream.
I really don't see any good reason it should stop at $100 or thereafter. Maybe a little delay, as we saw at $50. Then up, next stops $200 or $250 (3 weeks), then $500 (somtime in may), then $1000 (during the summer).
YES for this analysis This doesn't make sense. Past history is not an indication of future performance. So much variables changed since June 2011. You could take all your numbers and put a random one and it would be as much precise. Try to understand why the price crashed in 2011 and what changed since then. I don't say it won't crash but history is not likely to repeat itself.
YES Isnt it funny how all the logical arguments point to the price going up further. All the illogical ones, about a fear of a bubble, because the rise has been too fast, because of a certain chart pattern, etc etc , point to the price falling. As someone who aims to trade on reason and logical grounds rather than emotional, I know which side of the order book Im on right now. |
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Ahh thanks  |
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An article in today's WSJ about the Bitcoin/FinCen regulations. It's paywalled - so for anyone who doesn't have a subscription. bit.ly/ZZZ63u |
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Great post. I'm happy for you and that you were fortunate enough to be involved in the early days.
I'd keep quiet about the bitcoins that you own however and maybe remove any references to how or where they are stored. These forums are public, with the bitcoin price increasing daily it could be a wise move.
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At least the regs are acknowledging bitcoin and haven't outlawed in completed. They seem to even be embracing its existance here with a special clause for it.
One has to wonder why they are doing this. Presumably there has been a request passed to them from a higher body to put in a law about Bitcoin. I would speculate: the CIA/FBI were aware of the technology a while ago and have passed on an opinion that it does not require heavy regulation at this stage.
So thats what Id say this shows. The federal government are probably not going to take any real action against the currency at this stage of its growth. By extension (given the world follows the US), let's say the US isn't.
IMO we can take from this a very positive message about federal regulation.
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