Someone may come along with some killer service (eg Kim DotCom) and vastly increase the Bitcoin economy's GDP, this will obviously allow for a higher evaluation compared to Fiat.
And that's the challenge. A lot of people expect that to happen. And thus they aren't selling at $11.75 (today's rate), and are willing to buy at $11 and buy a lot more at $9. Bitcoin's use as a currency obviously doesn't today have the volume to justify a $100+ million valuation (number of BTC issued X market exchange rate). But there is sufficient speculative interest as to its future value that it won't drop anywhere near its value that is mathematically justified.
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if there was a reliable way to track and prove irrevocably that the BTC had ben sent to the buyer [but] with BTC addresses being nothing but a random number of letters and numbers it's impossible.
It is not impossible. It is fairly simple and straight forward, actually. You are describing a standard contract. I'm suspecting your concern isn't that there "isn't a reliable way to track and prove irrevocably that the BTC had been sent to the buyer" but instead that as a seller you are taking the risk of seeing a chargeback or other reversal when you accept PayPal, credit card, Moneybookers/Skrill, or any other reversible payment method. That's a different problem entirely.
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if there was a reliable way to track and prove irrevocably that the BTC had ben sent to the buyer [but] with BTC addresses being nothing but a random number of letters and numbers it's impossible.
It is not impossible. It is fairly simple and straight forward, actually. You are describing a standard contract. The contract between buyer and seller defines payment terms and simply says that delivery of the bitcoins is completed when N BTC are sent to the Bitcoin address X and all transaction(s) in which the coins were sent n have N confirmations. This contract can be signed (physically, with a pen) and sent by mail, fax, e-mail attachment, whatever method is legally recognized in the two jurisdictions. In certain jurisdictions, a digital signature (e.g. GPG) is acceptable as well. It has been accepted that Bitcoin would benefit with the inclusion of a payment protocol which would lessen the need for an external contract like this, however that protocol has not yet been implemented. If you are looking for escrow, there are several listed here: Escrow list - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108716.0
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futures price, apart from really crazy situations, is always lower than the current market price.
I'm a noob when it comes to futures contract trading but "always" is probably the wrong word to use, and "normal" might be the more appropriate term. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_backwardation The difference with bitcoin, and specifically with BUZ2 is that there are so few options to trade on margin that the price on ICBIT.se appears to end up being an exaggeration of current market sentiment. Because ICBIT offers leverage somewhere in the range of 10:1, it is one of the few options available to aggressive speculators. But there is not that much liquidity, so even with a relatively large delta between BUZ2 and the current BTC/USD, the futures contracts don't influence the market (spot) rates hardly at all. It does, however, give someone who thinks the exchange rate is going to rise but has no USDs at an exchange the ability to add to their BTC position by entering at a lower rate, currently about $11.24.
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I've just gotten started doing business in bitcoins and I'm curious what solutions other bitcoin businesses use for bookkeeping.
Is there any bookkeeping software or website that can handle btc and dynamically import exchange rate data? Anything that offers an API extensible enough to add this?
There are some multi-currency accounting apps listed here: - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/3612/153Perhaps a method for doing the importing of the exchange rate table could be built into one of the open source ones.
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Otherwise there would be always the lurking threat of someone coming into Iran with 10 BTC he bought for ~100 USD and having a buying power many times that.
But the "lurking threat" you fear is exactly this works. That is showing how someone with $100 quickly saw that amount's buying power (in terms of Iranian rial / IRR) doubled in just a few weeks. It sucks for those who were late to get rid of their rials, or never exchanged them out at all, but the end result is more dollars moved in a result of that increase in buying power. If Bitcoins trade at a premium because they are scarce, more will be drawn in by the increase in the buying power of those bitcoins. Since bitcoins can flow easier (i.e., electronically) than dollars do, which do you think is capable of reaching market equilibrium first? On one hand you have bitcoins that can be received by millions of Iranians with family abroad who can receive bitcoins via a mobile or PC. On the other you have paper money that must be smuggled through border crossings, or dribbled through via travelers from abroad or the few other entry vectors. Of course, we all are well aware that bitcoin doesn't just explode onto the scene, but it probably does have a role that can be significant for both Bitcoin and for the pioneers who use it
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Lots of services like Bitinstant pays out via paypal. There are numerous Bitcoins being sold on ebay, therefore paypal. What's the official stance?
From another thread: If you are only doing small person-to-person trades, infrequently and neither side has chargeback issues, you probably can keep trading bitcoins using PayPal for quite some time. But when you start trading suddenly for larger amounts (e.g., more than a thousand dollars a month or a multiple of previous monthly average amount) or you start doing a ton of transactions -- especially involving funds from the buyer's credit card, or either you or your counterparty has chargebacks ... then you are playing with fire. And you will get burned. Here's the specific terms: - https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/AcceptableUse_popupProhibited Activities You may not use the PayPal service for activities that: 3. h) involve currency exchanges or check cashing businesses, And if you'ld like to see a heartwarming story about the aftermath after Paypal realized some trader was selling bitcoins and followed that discovery by reversing 20 or so recent transactions and then freezing the funds, start here: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83679.msg1001602#msg1001602And another thread where the eBay seller got his PayPal account frozen: I got suspended for selling paperclips with free bitcoins 2 days ago, and yes i sent the damn clips with a tracking number. They want all kind of documents to re-enable my account. I had only positive votes with them but the fees are killing me so i think i will pass doing something about it. They will get to know bitcoin in the end.
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I can verify that the BitAddress.org website has been updated and returns the same HTML from the commit with the description v1.9 (770d933029b8bbb56539d866db6b8fa37f262102) in github: - https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.orgTo confirm this I first check the sha1sum hash of the html returned by a request to http://bitaddress.org: $ wget --quiet -O - http://bitaddress.org|sha1sum a487b495d710d6f617d688e5f758e40c8b6c510e - $ GET -eSd bitaddress.org|grep -i "200 OK" GET https://www.bitaddress.org/bitaddress.org-v1.9-SHA1-a487b495d710d6f617d688e5f758e40c8b6c510e.html --> 200 OK Then from my bitaddress.org repo: $ git checkout master $ git log --pretty=oneline|grep "v1.9" 770d933029b8bbb56539d866db6b8fa37f262102 v1.9 Testnet Edition fixes $ git checkout 770d933029b8bbb56539d866db6b8fa37f262102 $ git rev-list --max-count=1 HEAD 770d933029b8bbb56539d866db6b8fa37f262102 $ sha1sum bitaddress.org.html a487b495d710d6f617d688e5f758e40c8b6c510e bitaddress.org.html [Update: Had to update the procedure since there had been commits to master since v1.9.]
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@Frisco2, you might want to consider updating the first post of this thread. The thread started under a different title, before there was a Propster, and the links to the old site in that first post are no longer functional.
(Additionally, the FSF's page still shows the old URL, so perhaps you want to let them know about the Propster URL as the replacement.)
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Too bad it's a f***** google machine translation Really, people should stop doing this. Particularly for a financial site involving non-reversible transactions. Related: For anyone who would be interested in helping with translations I have put up some string templates on github: https://github.com/blockchain/Blockchain-TranslationsAt the moment only strings for the homepage have been extracted, when strings for the rest of the site are ready I will be putting up some bounties.
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So right now mercaBit works like a normal shop, with opening and closing hours. Thinking about how to get more people on board and help me with.
Ah. So perhaps displaying the message "Open business hours, CEST" or something like that would help lessen confusion? Thanks for the explaining how that works though.
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Should we just accept this and horde and dump as we please, accepting that Bitcoin will likely not make it?
Yes, Bitcoin's value will be the result of speculation. Your hoarding helps someone else (someone who is hoping to sell at a higher price). Your dumping helps someone else (someone who is hoping to buy at a lower price). Also, your buying and selling helps liquidity, thus shrinks the spreads between the buy and sell.
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Could someone explain how they would escape that spiral? When I buy bitcoins using Dwolla, I pay a total of $0.25 to send USDs to an exchange, and the 0.55% in exchange fees. There is also a tiny spread between the bid and the ask price, which might cost under a half a percent. So, for a $100 purchase, I have about $99 worth buying power. When I make a $100 credit card payment with a merchant, the merchant gets $97. Thus the merchant might offer me a discount for paying with bitcoins. So my bill is: $100 (if paying with credit card), or $98 ($98 worth of bicoins, if using that payment method.) The merchant comes out ahead. I come out ahead -- I saved about a dollar for converting my fiat and using it to pay with bitcoin, including my conversion costs).
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The presenter said that it is possible to build up a graph that shows transactions between people. Bitcoin can be used in a manner that protects your privacy. Every bitcoin transaction is traceable though, so without taking protective measures, there is information that can be gleamed from the blockchain. - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/AnonymityThere is an effort to provide the associations: - http://toolongdidntread.comThe site, BlockViewer is offline currently, but it was showing some of these associations between people who were careless with their information (e.g., used static addresses) and/or weren't protecting their activity from this type of flow analysis. - http://blockviewer.com
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how come the futures are always ahead of the trend ? when mtgoxUSD it was above 12 the futures got above 13 now is head lower at sell 11.45 buy 11.2
It looks like there are some bad numbers being used or bad calculations occurring with the exchange: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50817.msg1281760#msg1281760 [Edit: Issue has been resolved.]
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Yup, and it looks like the 8PM tick down to 10$ passed through the bids
That $10 is bogus. I hope nobody got forced liquidation due to an insufficient margin maintenance because of that. Trading range of $9 to $11, what? @Fireball, where are these numbers coming from?
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If the weekend indicator continues being accurate, then now would be a good time to dump some coins! - http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2012-10-03zeg2012-10-19ztgSzm1g10zm2g25That shows a clear week-over-week downtrend (measured Wednesday evening (west) / Thursday morning (east), ... and yes, I'm a little late looking at this ... sorry) and thus there is a GREEN LIGHT. Now all this says is that historically when this condition occurs, more often than not the price drops into the weekend, where the coins can be bought back at a lower level. Timed properly, this trade should have begun about 18 hours ago (when the exchange rate was around $11.75-ish). I'm late in looking at this, and actually benefit by selling at a higher level, ... just under $12. For scoring the Weekend Dip indicator's success though, $11.75 will be the amount used. Looking for a dip by a couple percent below that for this weekend dip indicator to ring true. We'll see!
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will do business anytime.
The site currently shows: Status: Not available and nearly every time I look it shows that. Is that accurate?
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