Do they still have the bitcoin in their private keys?
Yes; they are unopened and the firstbits can be checked online. I can provide pics. |
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Am I wrong then thinking that back in 2011 bitcoin-qt didnt encrypt the wallet? Id hate to give you any false hope; but have you opened the orginal wallet.dat in a text editor? Even if it turns out to be encrypted, early versions of bitcoin had a weakness according to this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52480.0Perhaps you can exploit that if the wallet was created by such an old client? |
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There's nothing wrong with having an open source trading engine, there shouldn't be any secrets in there.
Yeah? What if developers leaved a bug with vulnurability and have no idea about it? And 1000s hackers in the world have ability to watch and reverse the source... And 1000s of legitimate developers have the possibility to find and correct bugs before hackers do. Its how linux and unix work and your bank runs on it. That said; in this case the ratio of honest devs and wannabee hackers was probably skewed in the wrong direction, and the software couldnt possibly have been as mature as something like linux/unix so Im not sure it was a great idea. |
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It's not fair. I can't get at those cheap cheap bitcoins. It'll be $1000/btc by the end of the month. We're going exponential people. Chase that asymptote.
Does that mean next month will never happen?  |
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Im in the same boat, as, well; most people here. The amounts will vary but the feeling will be similar.
I did sell some at $50 and I dont feel bad about it.
In fact I sold and used a bunch of coins at $6 and I dont even feel too bad about that.
Ive only sold a relatively small portion of my coins and whatever happens; its still the best investment Ive ever made and likely ever will make. So I dont see why I should feel bad. OF course I could have made even more. We all could have made even more if we had we sold pizza's for 15K BTC. Or mined in 2009. The only thing I feel slightly bad about is handing out a dozen Casascius series 1 coins to people who have all lost them now. These coins now sell for 5x their BTC value.
Anyway, I will sell some more today, and I will keep selling small amounts as the price keeps rocketing up. If bitcoin breaks $1000 or $10000 one day I will probably still have roughly half my coins and be rich and I cant lose too much sleep over possibly having been even richer. If bitcoin enters a big crash, I will have some spare fiat at hand to buy back.
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Hi all; Turns out I still have a few original series 1 Casascius 1 BTC coins with spelling error. Someone pointed out to me these are heavily searched after and on ebay sell for 5x the BTC value ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Version-1-Casascius-Bitcoin-Minted-in-Dec-2011-/190814922588) It pains to say I gave away about a dozen of those coins and most of them are lost  . but I still have 2 Im willing to trade. If you are interested, make me an offer in BTC. I can ship worldwide and will do escrow. Coins are in mint condition and obviously unopened. Im also open to trading against series 2 coins or other denominations. BTW, I also noticed my 5BTC coins have the same typo error. Im not sure if there has ever been made a series 2? Do these coins have any collector value? Cheers. |
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Still selling the 5870 or no ? UK buyer might be interested...... No, Im going to keep the remaining cards for now. |
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2x 5850 and 700W OCZ PSU sold to Uuno.
Payment received; tracking number supplied.
Ill probably hang on to the rest of the cards.
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Yes, there is a rational; and yes, you don't see it. It's not even that you don't quite see it, you're not even within a line of sight yet.
A monetary base forms the frame of reference for value calculations. In this sense, the monetary base must be knowable, and it also must be difficult (if not impossible) for the common user to create new currency. For Ripple, a peg to the US $ would work fine, as it has for Paypal. But without a currency base to use as a common frame of reference, Ripple users would be able to create debt based currency as easily as is done in a LETS and would remain as local for the same reasons. So whats the dollar pegged to? Exactly; nothing. It floats freely and you've not give me half an argument why a p2p credit money system could not float freely. Anyway; dont bother replying if you cant do it without ad hominems or ad ad pseudonyms. |
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Ripple is p2p credit, yes. Ripple is not a currency, however. The distinction is not trivial. Credit does not equal currency, and serves a different function. Bitcoin can exist independently of Ripple, and Ripple can exist independently of Bitcoin; but Ripple cannot exist independently of an established common currency base. Eventually I dont see why not. Our current fiat system doesnt have a monetary base either: Its debt money where the debt is expressed in that same currency and nothing else. Of course you will need a base initially, like we needed a gold standard to build trust and help assessing value. But it in the long run it serves no purpose; particularly not in a p2p system. Proponents of a return to the gold standard want it so governments have a limit on how much money they can print; but if everyone issues his own credit and is liable for that credit, whats the rational for a monetary base? Perhaps there is one; but I dont quite see it. Anyway, this thread was about Krugman; my point is and always has been that krugman is correct in his criticism of bitcoin as an alternative to fiat credit money. I doubt he has heard of ripple though; would be interesting to hear his opinion on that. |
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Puppet, credit systems within bitcoin will develop when the market is right for them. To some degree, they already exist, but are very personal and unsecured. I've done several myself. As you already noted, Ripple is a decentralized consumer credit system. Ive mentioned ripple countless times in this very thread as a far more credible alternative concept for current fiat money than bitcoin. But like I also mentioned countless times; once you accept ripple or something like ripple as a mainstream currency, whats the point of having bitcoin (or something else) as its monetary base? We got rid of the gold standard without too much problem; and thats despite it being a centralized government monopoly with potentially perverse incentives: Ripple is p2p credit, once it achieves enough trust and adoption Im not sure I see the need to base it on bitcoin.. or anything at all. You promised to respond to my arguments yesterday. Did you not have a rational response?
No; I did the very thing you said I couldnt: I changed my mind (about replying to you):Maybe I will change it again tomorrow. |
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If every investment is backed by enough saving, there won't be such problem. One persons debt is another persons money aka saving. And vice versa. You just reinvented the basic idea behind credit money. If you werent almost 5000 years late; Id nominate you for a Nobel prize  Im not saying there is nothing wrong with our current financial system; but the basic principles behind it are pretty damn sound. I would expect nothing else after 5000 years of experimentation and (r)evolution. Bitcoin OTOH is technically new and a revolutionary system; but as a financial system its no different than those millenia old systems from which we have long evolved - for good reason. |
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How many people do you know that *needed* to purchase a house when starting out? No one renting? Oh wait, no, they have to buy a house. It's the American dream! Wait, isn't that how we got in the mess?
Strictly speaking one doesnt even need to rent a house. Once upon a time we were happy to live in caves too. Thing is, you think we can turn the financial clock back to the dark ages or even the ancient egyptians and have a thriving economy based on a fixed supply currency without facing the same problems they did (and reinventing similar solutions). I respectfully disagree. |
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How many people do you know that purchased their first house from savings alone? Started a business without needing some financing? I dont think I know anyone. And trade is all about credit. Just look what happens when credit contracts even a tiny bit like now. And you think we could pretty much eliminate it and still have a thriving economy? Common, gimme a break. Unless you want to rely on hand to hand bartering pretty much any business transaction involves the creation of debt. Thinking you can do without sounds almost as naive as someone who thinks we can print money to make everyone rich. We cant all be rich and we cant all be net savers all the time.
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I guess my response is that if Bitcoin is better for the individual, then that is what individuals will select.
Better for what? Its certainly not better for any individual or any business needing credit, and that is mostly everyone. Commerce without affordable credit just isnt going to work. Again, there is a reason we invented credit money countless centuries ago - when we already had gold. What makes you think today we could do without ? |
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If what you have been saying is true, it should cause economic collapse without even having to compete with credit money as currency, its mere existence should be enough.
no, why? Because you can always buy Bitcoin instead? Isn't that the whole idea? Like you can buy rembrandts or gold. Or land. As long as I can exchange currencies freely, I don't see the difference between owning coins or dollars. No rational person would convert their coins to dollars in order to lose the incentive to save. And if you were willing to spend your dollars, you must be willing to spend the coin equivalent. If Bitcoin does indeed hinder your willingness, it doesn't make any sense to be more willing to spend your already existing dollars, since you can exchange them for bitcoins instead. Does it make sense?
I see what you are saying; but it applies to any store of wealth. Credit money is universally accepted and easily obtainable, also -and crucially- as, well, credit. With pure bitcoins; thats just not going to happen. Take the example of that Canadian selling his house for bitcoins. Made a nice news story, but think it through. Most people borrow for their first house. Are they going to be borrowing 2K bitcoins? Not bloody likely. So their debt and the price of the house will still be in credit money, no matter if the transaction happens in BTC. And to service their debt they will need to obtain credit money and so nothing really changes. Some people will invest in BTC like others invest in gold or land; they might even do some transactions in it but its not going to be replacing credit money as long people and business need credit which is forever. Its going to be replacing other stores of wealth. |
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You formed a union with your neighbors to work within a single financial system and a single currency. You are all mismanaging it together so you should all pay together. Not only because you all caused the problem together (so you deserve to share the loss), but because if any of you go down you all go down. You don't have to like each other, you just have to keep each other afloat when things get bad. If you didn't want to pay for things like this then you should not have set up such an insane arrangement in the first place.
The above might be an argument to bail out states. And actually; I dont mind too much if some of my tax money went to greece or spain or cyprus in the form of debt relief (which makes a lot more sense to me than lending them even more money they cant pay back). Its also in my interest those states get back on their feet financially and economically. But the above can not possibly be an argument to bail out failed banks that took ridiculous risks and lost it all. The moral hazard is exactly the same as in the US bailout; which I think was a colossal mistake. Those banks and its shareholders should have been wiped out so that banks (and their shareholders) that didnt mismanage their customers fund would actually have had benefit from their better strategy. Im glad the EU is doing this part right at least. |
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If the EU didn't want to bail out banks then they should allow them to fail, but they still need to pay what they owe to the people whose deposits they insured (there is some kind of deposit insurance in Europe, isn't there?).
Some kind, yes; deposits are guaranteed up to 100K euro; and thats what is being honored. Above that you are on your own. Thats not unique to cyprus; that applies pretty much across europe. In the US I believe its up to $250K. As for the rest of your post; shareholders were indeed wiped out completely (as they should be) but obviously thats not enough otherwise those banks wouldnt be bankrupt in the first place. The rest of the gap will be filled by bond holders and deposit holders with >100K. Also that seems completely logical to me, if any company goes bankrupt its creditors shouldnt expect to be paid in full, otherwise there would be no bankruptcy. Both bond and deposit holders really are nothing else than creditors to the bank. I dont see why taxpayers should cough up that money for a bank and not any other bankruptcy. |
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bump
Im beginning to get nervous here to. Whats going on?
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