Actually, it IS the value that people place on all these things. However, it isn't always direct value.

We wouldn't have a military if people didn't place trust in government officials to provide a military. So, indirectly, it is the value that people place on the military.

Now that people can see more and more how the banks and government and the military are NOT doing what they want, the people are turning to Bitcoin to overcome the problems that they see in the system.

It all has to do with the value people place on everything.

Yeah, I know. All that bandwidth and such.

A lot of people enjoy fearing things, period.

The only thing that backs Bitcoin is the same thing that backs the fiat currencies, stocks and bonds, and anything else. It is the value that people place on it.

Bitcoin has expanded by virtue of what the people think, in 5 years, so that it is becoming a threat to the fiat currencies, currencies that have been around for as long as hundreds of years. It all has to do with what the people think. And what the people think has to do with what the banks and governments have trained them to think. Now it is starting to backfire on the banks and governments through Bitcoin.

How about changing the Bitcoin client so that certain bitcoin transactions can be backed in redeemable fashion by certain dollar bills (or $100s).

Every dollar bill has its own serial number that is unique to it and it alone. Why not change the client scripting a little so that a person can lock a specific piece of currency to a certain Bitcoin transaction. Doing this might stabilize the big Bitcoin value fluctuation a little.

I don't have a clue what would happen in the real world, but think about it and reply with your thoughts.

Bitcoin has not become popular enough among people that it can be used to buy all the food and clothing, etc., that you need to live. Because of this, every pro-Bitcoin person needs to look at all the issues regarding Bitcoin.

People in governments who are anti-bitcoin, are keeping part of their focus on what Bitcoin might do to the fiat currency system. Bitcoin might collapse the whole structure of money if it can't be controlled, or if the people that use Bitcoin can't be controlled. Something like this could change the wealth structure in the world. It could shift the wealth, and the governments don't like this because they would lose control.

If Bitcoin crashed the fiat currencies (which will crash on their own, anyway), and if it was done before the people are using Bitcoin for all the things they do in life, there might be a lot of pain and death until things settle down.

Think of how many people are fully dependent on government checks, and their retirement accounts in the corporate world, with no other source of income or method to obtain food.

Think of all the big inner-city dwellers who would have no way to even grow their food. The fiat currencies will crash. We need something that is better to take their place. Bitcoin could be that something. But in moving into position, Bitcoin will actually help to destroy the fiat currencies.

So you see? There might be a lot of anti-bitcoin talk among the people who depend on the dollar, the government and the banking system. It shouldn't be this way. But people have let themselves be enticed into a hole called socialism. And the thing that backs socialism as it is today is money. When the money collapses, socialism will collapse. The people who depend on socialism don't like Bitcoin, because it is helping to promote the collapse.

People don't understand that the BIGGEST area of crime is the crime done by the banks and the governments. But even if they did, they have grown dependent on the banks and government so that they cannot live without them. This is part of the reason for talk against Bitcoin.

Anyone with an account could post the info you are looking for. But MoneypakTrader would rather you take the time to sign up and get the info that way. It's part of the understood rules.

You can easily get any number of online email addresses if you don't want to use your main email when signing up.

Once signed up, if you don't like what you see on the MPT site, simply delete your email account wherever you have it, and find another trader.

It's easy to do this, and it would be according to MPT rules.

Most of the info you would be looking for is available in the help section, or in this forum on the main page. The process is very simple. You will find very little info beyond what is posted here and publicly on the site. It's that simple.

Thanks for your good wishes. There are holes in everything, even potential holes in Bitcoin.

If Hitler had only waited a year longer, we might all be speaking German as our first language. There are holes in everything.

Forget the pyramid scheme aspect, and focus on Bitcoin and Gifting.

Lots of folks play cards and other games around the table, and bet for matchsticks or toothpicks. Matchsticks and toothpicks have value. They can be used for something useful... just like Bitcoin. Folks play the games for fun and bet for excitement, not to get rich. And this is all that people would be using the gifting for, at least at its beginning. After awhile, they would be thanking their lucky stars that they had been shown a way to give gifts to their kids and grand-kids while letting them get in on the greatest freedom-maker in the economic world.

I agree. "Bitcoin is the way forward," at least until something better comes along.

Freedom from the centrally controlled banking system that siphons off value whenever you use their fiat currencies, and more if you simply save them in a bank.

The only problem is the active supply in use. Imagine that there was only one bitcoin actively traded, because all the rest of them were hoarded or lost. That one bitcoin would have long since been split into its basic satoshis, each of which would be worth a fortune. Perhaps some form of scripting would be applied to the clients that would make satoshi kids and grand-kids (dividing the satoshi), just so that there would be enough of that single bitcoin to go around the world.

Then, watch the bubble burst when 90% of the rest of the bitcoins come into action in one day. Never happen.

There is no problem with lost or hoarded bitcoins.

The one major reason Bitcoin matters is

FREEDOM

The whole idea is to get experienced bitcoiners to have a purpose / direction / goal to strive for, for introducing Bitcoin to those who haven't heard of it or begun to use it yet. If the amounts were a little less, so that your average, say, Walmart worker could afford to get in, this idea might be a terrific method for promoting the whole Bitcoin idea, sort of like a game. Now for the advertising.

Get some locals together who have the funds to start and back an exchange for the poor locals. Find the business folks who want to improve Africa and the people, rather than line their own pockets. Hold local meetings. Make kiosks available to the people who can't afford computers. But do it locally at first. Then expand to nearby areas.

The core Bitcoin developers are hoping that someone will improve the idea of Bitcoin. One potential improvement might be to design a client that can attach specific property to certain bitcoins. If the bitcoins are transferred, the backing by the property goes along with them. The owner of the property has placed the property in trust with the specified bitcoins, so that he cannot transfer the property until such a time that it is no longer the backing for the specified bitcoins involved. What this would in effect do is to make the bitcoins in question to be redeemable by the property stated in the transaction, something like dollars were redeemable by gold and silver in the old days. Making a client like this would tend to bring Bitcoin into the realm of REAL trading and usefulness among the people.

The blockchain is all the Bitcoin cop we need. It's about time that people start to take responsibility for doing due diligence in their transactions, rather than relying on someone else to do it for them. Transact in small amounts or use escrow.

But... Bitcoin will destroy the fiat currencies. They will fail at exponentially greater rates. Their final crash will come all at once.

Bitcoin will survive. But there are very few people who understand it, and who use it to trade for THE THINGS THEY NEED TO SURVIVE. Think of all the elderly and sick who will die because they no longer receive a government check in the mail.

If governments can't destroy the blockchain by hacking it, and if they attempt to ban Bitcoin, they will destroy themselves.

They know this, and so they will try to use Bitcoin and incorporate it into their operations. Watch out for regulation rather than banning. The regulation will happen in areas that they can watch - NSA spying - like what products are transferred where without some regular fiat currency payment.