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sometimes it seems to me that the only way bitcoin is going to make it 'big' is by first finding huge support in the various underground economies of the world, places and situations where anonymity is as important as the fact that it is cash-based and untaxable. my guess is that its success there would surely indicate for all that it works and serves the function of its creator(s?) well, even at scale.
and how big is that market? i have no idea, but i would imagine it to be quite large indeed.
does anyone know the total size of just the global drug market for example?
what do you all think about this?
silk road may pave the way.
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i have been away from the bitcoin scene for a while and just catching up on everything.
why did trade hill shut down, the actual reasons? they seemed very promising.
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I don't think so. There's a lot of time for various kinds of things to happen before the year is over. And, although adoption rate has slowed down (may be temporarily, may be for good), I'm fairly sure most current and potential owners of bitcoin aren't really very well versed in the technicalities of the bitcoin network, and the block reward halving will thus be a strong boost to bitcoin overall. I'd dare say MOST btcs are bought by people who do not price the eventual inflation rate drop into their strategies.
is that true? has the adoption rate slowed? where is it possible to see such data/statistics? |
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has anyone researched that and/or made any informed speculation about it?
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Indeed it seems Bitcoin somehow very often intuitively disturbs many people. It often inspires modern day Luddism.
It's true. There's some kind of visceral response to the concept that I just don't really understand. Money, like religion, is one of those subjects that makes many people uncomfortable because it can trigger some very deep-seated anxieties. I've seen the visceral reaction to Bitcoin you're referring to and my theory is that it's a fear response. They're afraid to invest because they're afraid of losing their money and even worse, feeling like suckers for taking a bath on "fake digital money." But they're also afraid not to invest and missing out on an absolutely huge opportunity. If the first fear wins out, cognitive dissonance makes it important to convince themselves they've made the right decision - to keep the second fear at bay. That cognitive dissonance can make them react in what seems like a weirdly-hostile manner to pro-Bitcoin arguments. this is probably the most sensible answer to the question, though i think there is more to it. as i said, i find myself rather surprised that all of these people in a 'disruption' industry would be so fearful and queasy about something disruptive: it's not as though people in that industry haven't tried to disrupt money before. |
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i can tell you for my part at least, that i will be buying at any price below $6.
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true. and unfortunate as wars are, i guess it makes sense that if there is a war/are wars, there will also be capital controls, and bitcoin's popularity as an underground way to move money will increase?
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Alot of people seem to be opposed to bitcoin...  A lot of people in IT opposed the Internet in 1993. Took 6 years. In 1999 they said it all along how great the Internet is. Exactly. "IT" as in developers? is there some place that i can read more on this? |
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I think you're close to the mark.. but perhaps it's more that most venture capitalists (and people who are already wealthy in general) are skeptical of it and the "internet industry" is echoing that.
I suspect also that much negative bitcoin sentiment is driven by how journalists report on it, and most journalists are much more geared towards looking at the past than looking forward.
i haven't seen much to indicate that the vc industry is opposed to it. quite the contrary, one of the most prominent VCs out there seems to be really into it: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/11/bitcoin.htmland didn't y combinator just invest in a bitcoin company? |
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it's really strange to me that a lot of internet industry folks, a lot of otherwise really smart people, seem to be taking a very defensive stance against bitcoin.
i am trying to understand the reason for that: bitcoin remains one of the most innovative ideas ever to be developed, and the people who are rejecting it the most "coldly" seem to be people who work in an industry that allegedly is all about disruption and embracing the new. is bitcoin _too_ innovative?
has someone that a lot of these folks respect spoken authoritatively against bitcoin, and I've simply missed it? i often read people from the internet industry citing krugman and the first quora post in which some guy named Adam (who apparently works for an online sports ticketing company) tears it to pieces, but there are just as many good counter-arguments in that post.
does bitcoin contradict an "expert class" of some sort, perhaps? the opposition often says "you know nothing about economics", when bitcoin is brought up.
perhaps the upset and opposition mostly stem from the fact that "internet industry" players cannot control it?
i ask all of this, simply because i haven't been convinced of its faults by any of the arguments i've seen, and i am continually confused by the fact that these productive people aren't all going crazy with excitement about this project.
thoughts?
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so did anything ever come of this?
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my suggestions:
- don't use the same passwords in different places (get 1Password or KeePass).
- don't use webmail (download the mail locally, make sure your harddrive or at least your home folder is encrypted with a good pw/key)
- don't use dropbox (unless you drop everything into a truecrypt image)
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... and if there's one thing I've learned from all this, it's this: Nobody knows what the fuck they're talking about
hear, hear! |
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hey jared, you have a huge number of posts here.
how long have you been working on tradehill? how long have you been involved in bitcoin?
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He got caught up in the altruism and potential of BTC, not the speculation side.
Now that he finally sees clearly what I was telling him from the beginning, his optimism is gone, and he's not only emotionally destabilized, but financially destabilized.
Added to the fact that I don't give a fuck about you or anyone else here as a person, and yeah, I'm apt to be en garde.
so you're 'right' now -- but what about later? like I said, LONG bet. |
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I have been playing therapist over the phone to a friend who just majorly bought into this shit on Friday.
He's pretty much fucked now, and probably out of his girlfriend too, and is probably going to have to move out.
Unless he can still find enough suckers to sell out his holdings to before the price completely crashes...
where to begin? btc is a LONG bet -- he should know that. and if a little bit of gambling is enough to cause a split... come on now. it sounds like your friend suffers from a bit of stupidity/naïvete, but that doesn't mean you have to spit it back in OUR faces. |
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indeed. it's out, it's everywhere, it will not go away.
enjoy the digital age!
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i really don't think you can call them 'stolen coins' with a straight face. what's done is done, and it's on your shoulders to fix it, NOT by denying people with legitimate bids their feast.
Coins sold by someone who didn't own them are not stolen? Why? because you got them? That's very narcissistic, almost psychopathic. Psychopaths should not benefit from this currency: that's the way the old world worked. you're completely right and i already retracted that sentiment in an earlier post in this thread. even if i do feel a little burned (hey it's natural after a seemingly eye-popping win), i'd rather do what is right for this thing to succeed long-term. |
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Certainly not a good place for the faint of heart though.
Like 99% of the rest of society that could have actually added and real goddamn value, to what now WHOLLY amounts to a speculator's community Fleshlight. Let me how many strokes you last... i really want to coddle you, and tell you some sweet bed time stories. |
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Fortunately I disposed of all 10 of them on Mt. Gox just last night on a hunch that some kinda shit was going to happen.
I'm pretty insightful that way.
And thanks for being a patsy.
Cheers.
wait... 10? really? come on man, do you have to fill the forums with all this hate over *10* btc? |
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