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Talking about regulatory uncertainty and economic uncertainty in Cyprus.
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They are mostly interviewing angry Cypriots right now. They are reporting on upcoming capital controls/cash controls in Cyprus!!
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And they are starting their discussion on BTCs and Cyprus right now! It might be mentioned on the BBC News as well.
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They are talking about NHS right now. You have not missed anything yet.
Edit: now they are talking about David Milliband who is leaving British politics to work in America. I actually like that guy more than most European Social Democrats.
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But is it legal to stream it? In the hypothetical situation that I had a working streaming link to BBC2, should I post it here? |
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Streaming link anybody?
edit: Don't know if streaming from BBC2 is legal or not...
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if one person does me wrong i take it like a man and move on. when the majority of people do me wrong it gets harder and harder not to get sucked in to the shit storm.
I think you misunderstood me, I was not criticizing the need for revenge, I was merely stating that revenge should, if it is needed, be directed at the perpetrator and not directed at humanity or "otherness" in general. |
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It's funny, I thought that a bear trap was forming from here up to $100? The effect of your undisclosed news would have been visible days ago in the market. I can't imagine that you are the first to tell someone? When I was green two years ago, I fell for such posts every time and bougt back haigher the day after. BTW yesterday I sold all my Euro stocks based on watching Cyprus stories in the media the whole weekend. So far the European stock market hasn't taken as hard a hit as I thought it would  Lol. Thank God I used to trade in stock before I put some moneys into BTCs. That kind of prepared me to be able to be in something long term and not try to trade every little dip. |
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And now you seek some kind of forgiveness which you think you can achieve through faked repent and honesty without consequences. Only if you try to pay back your victims will you become a better man. Not by explaining yourself anonymously on an Internet forum.
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this was a very good question. i have been scammed so many times i cant keep track. by friends and family. after so many times of being scammed i flipped. i saw how everybody was doing it so i stopped being the one who gets scammed and started being the one who does the scamming. after you get burned so many times it makes you less remorseful and it felt like i was getting even and getting my losses back. i did get very angry. the experiences made me a scammer.
Very interesting description which confirms my theory of the perception of a "hive mind" among petty people. That revenge can be justified even though you are attacking someone else than the person that attacked you. Like it is you against the rest of the world. Only if you learn to accept that you are only one among many men and that you are no more worth than them, will you be able to rid yourself of these mental shackles. |
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BTW, thanks to laszlo for the sacrifice! I hope he still has enough bitcoins to enjoy!
This is actually no more sacrifice than buying 2 pizzas for 0.5 btc today. Assuming infinite liquidity, infinite cash on hand, and instantaneous transfer of funds I guess. |
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Government doesn't need to ban it, they can just require businesses to ask your identity and report it.
Anonymity would then exist only for businesses that are willing to be illegal. And then only for those who are careful enough and lucky enough to achieve technical anonymity. In short, not you. So don't worry about it. This does not affect you.
You don't think the banksters created bitcoin to allow you to be anonymous do you? No they created it so they can track your identity more closely. First they have to let you believe you have anonymity, then they take control over the block chain and the routers that all traffic passes through, then their 666 system is complete.
I didn't have time to read this thread, so apologies if I am repeating something somebody else already said.
Well none of my assumptions considered the conspiracy theory that some official body is behind this, but let me entertain your theory. Why bother? |
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So you realize that to everyone it appears as 2 newbie tuesdays are going to tell everyone how big bossman government is going to decimate bitcoin and its adherents in some pre-planned, hi!-karate!-chop? I see red-herring FUD and not well-dressed arguments - answer D&T's questions and stop trading tin-hat drivel. We are not come-lately to the scene, and can help legit questions. Please be advised that we have ignore buttons and monitor troll/shill activity.
I am concerned that uniformed troll-piles suddenly descending on the forums might harm sincere newbies.
Have fun on the forums!
I assume I am one of said newbies. Maybe you could reread my post and find a single unreasonable statement? If you are unable to do that, I would like an apology for your arrogance. I am no newcomer to economy, politics and institutional competition (the latter term you might want to Google). |
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It is an excellent and fairly likely scenario that you describe. And there is a lot of BTC cheerleading in here so most responses are pretty useless as you can see above.
The scenario that you describe is likely to happen in many or some Western countries. The federal government probably has the power to do this and so does the European union. But the UN does not so each country would have to ban it if it were to be outlawed all over the world. Now imagine the scenario that it is illegal in every part of the world but it still has some kind of following since there are at least 100k people who currently holds Bitcoins and value them. If some ministate would then allow the exchange of Bitcoins to other currencies then this state/government would receive a huge revenue from this legalization since all the 100k users would need to trade through this country if they wanted to exchange Bitcoins for other assets. So a country would have a big incentive to remove this law if it was banned all over the world since it would bring revenue to that country. The exchange from BTCs to fiat currencies in just one country would increase the value of BTCs since one could trade goods for BTCs (privately) in a place were BTCs were banned and then, at some point travel to country were it was legalized and exchange to gov. fiat or other assets there.
So if BTCs are banned in USA and Europe but not i, say, Russia, the Carribeans and Australia, they would still be worth something and usefull in the US. And currently BTCs have found widespread use in these different countries which ensures that it is outside the grasp of a single legal entity to ban the use of BTCs.
Hey, thanks for the balanced response. I agree that a ban would most likely come from the US and the EU (who have the most to lose from Bitcoin gaining acceptance) but if Bitcoins would facilitate tax evasion then it could be a wider threat that any government would like to contain. If as we hypothesize, only a few handful countries like Russia don't ban it, then as you say that country would serve as the financial center of the bitcoin exchange...but I doubt it would be that lucrative because the size of the bitcoin market cap is just a fraction of a countries' GDP. Not if it is a very small country like Iceland or a Carribean state. These countries could see a large rise in relative revenue from an acceptance of Bitcoins, i.e., they would have a large incentive to legalize it.
Also the scenario doesn't solve the case of how Americans or Europeans would be able to transfer money to these Russian exchanges because they would need the help of American banks or banks in America to achieve this (who are the exact enemies who don't want you to use Bitcoin).
The beauty is that most people would not have to. If just one person can go there once in a while, he can transfer money for other people or make some kind of black market currency exchange which already exists for government fiat currencies in countries that have exchange rate controls - e.g. there is a large black market for dollar exchange in socialist Venezuela. Even if there was a way to keep taking part in the bitcoin economy - the whole negative stigma associated with something illegal, inconveniences relating to circumventing illegal activities, lack of big businesses accepting it - all would put a severe dampen on Bitcoin's overall potential and would reduce it to a niche online currency and not the world changing technology that we were all hoping for.
Like a government ban on drugs or online file sharing? It may reduce the usefullness and thus value of BTCs but not destroy it. I think the main point here is that just having the currency system being decentralized is not enough - we also need decentralized corporations and exchange market places...and that seems to be beyond Bitcoin's technical limitations.
I think this is what they are trying to achieve with Ripple but I do not know that system very well yet. I think the main difference between our views is that I see the things which you can avoid when using BTCs, like laws, capital controls, inflation, taxes, money seizures are more damaging than you seem to believe - to be able to avoid these things is more important than the dangers you list, I believe. |
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I'm aware that Bitcoin is a decentralized system and it would be very difficult for any government or official body to take down in the traditional sense but I don't think they would need to actually shut it down to bring it under control. They would only need to put a law that bans any business from accepting Bitcoins, that alone would be enough to severely impair the system. No wise business would dare break such a law and incur criminal charges.
Bitcoin already is too slow in its payment confirmation process to be used in any real life retail scenario, so with online businesses also being shut out of the system, what else is left? Illegal activities, online casinos, services & digital products from small 'startups' or individuals, and just basic money transactions. If bitcoin based exchanges are also made illegal (because they also accept bitcoins when making sales), then what?
I'd love to hear a response to this highly possible scenario.
It is an excellent and fairly likely scenario that you describe. And there is a lot of BTC cheerleading in here so most responses are pretty useless as you can see above. The scenario that you describe is likely to happen in many or some Western countries. The federal government probably has the power to do this and so does the European union. But the UN does not so each country would have to ban it if it were to be outlawed all over the world. Now imagine the scenario that it is illegal in every part of the world but it still has some kind of following since there are at least 100k people who currently holds Bitcoins and value them. If some ministate would then allow the exchange of Bitcoins to other currencies then this state/government would receive a huge revenue from this legalization since all the 100k users would need to trade through this country if they wanted to exchange Bitcoins for other assets. So a country would have a big incentive to remove this law if it was banned all over the world since it would bring revenue to that country. The exchange from BTCs to fiat currencies in just one country would increase the value of BTCs since one could trade goods for BTCs (privately) in a place were BTCs were banned and then, at some point travel to country were it was legalized and exchange to gov. fiat or other assets there. So if BTCs are banned in USA and Europe but not i, say, Russia, the Carribeans and Australia, they would still be worth something and usefull in the US. And currently BTCs have found widespread use in these different countries which ensures that it is outside the grasp of a single legal entity to ban the use of BTCs. |
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Does anyone have any idea how many bitcoin users there are?
If not what would the best way be to find out an average? I would like to see the user growth rate over the next few years if this is at all possible.
Here you can see the number of unique adresses used every day: http://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addressesSome of this may be spam, though, i.e., just random transactions between wallets that are all owned by the same user. But about 50k different wallets are in use every day, it seems. |
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I understand that the market reaches this consensus through buyers and sellers placing their bids and asks on the exchanges, but WHY is a Bitcoin worth that price?
If Bitcoins were at $50 right now we would all probably think that was completely reasonable. If they were trading at $1000 a Bitcoin we would accept that too. Do buyers just pick arbitrary sell prices in their head, and then sellers pick arbitrary buy prices, and then the market reaches a consensus? Does anyone actually have a good understand of this or is there no "good answer". Thanks.
The way to determine to determine the price is by using the money velocity equation: V*M=nT (1) where V is average velocity (how fast money changes hands in actual transactions), M is the number of money units, i.e., bitcoin - currently about 11m. nT is the nominal value of all transactions measured in BTC. nT=P*Y where Y is the real value of all transactions and P is the price level (antiderivative of inflation level) which is inversely proportional to the value of the money, so nT=Y/val. Whence (1)=> V*M=Y/val => val=Y/(V*M) (2) Lets put some values into this equation (2), note that I am just making qualified guesses now. Some people may very well improve upon this answer below: Y is the real value of actual Bitcoin transactions, I say actual because many transactions in the Blockchain are just transfers between different accounts which have the same owner. Satoshidice transactions are real transactions, though, since they fulfill a market demand. I choose to measure Y in dollars. Let's just assume the Y is currently 20 times the value of the revenue of bitcoinsstore.com, so Y=20*400,000$/month=8,000,000$/month=96,000,000$/year ~100,000,000$/year. I assume V=1/year which is close to that of state fiat currencies. Plugging this into (2) yields: val=100,000,000$/(1*11,000,000)~9 dollar/ BTCThis is a fairly low value since I have not accounted for speculation (buying because some expect BTC to rise in value comp. to $) and since I may have underestimated Y. Speculation can be accounted for in a higher Y and a lower V which both raise the value of "val". I hope this gives you an idea of how to evaluate BTC's potential, though. It all depends on Y in the long run, i.e., how large the market for actual Bitcoin transactions will become in the future. Regards, Sword Smith Edit: I want to point out that I see my estimate on Y as an estimate of the current value of transactions and by no means an estimate of the value of future transactions. The value of M is also highly debatable. |
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And how would you spend these funds on the cold wallet safely? Through blockchain.info?
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Dear fellow BTC users
I have some BTCs lying around on paper wallets. These private addresses have never touched a computer that has touched the internet - totally cold wallets. When I want to transfer them to, say, another cold wallet, how would I proceed to do that in the safest possible way consistent with the safety steps I have already taken?
I would also like to know what the safest way to import wallet.dat files which also have never been in contact with the Internet. I made one of those back when I was a Bitcoin noob which I probably still am to some degree.
Hoping for your help guys!
Regards,
Sword Smith
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