If they are having problems it's probably because there was a huge new amount of interest.

I'm gonna say next week we will see 29. But that's only because the price will probably go down to 24 with all the banking holidays going on. 24 to 29 is still pretty good though and the majority of "new" people that are coming into bitcoin are probably longer term investors. Well hopefully. I'll be the first to admit though that I really have no idea what the price is going to do. I'm just pretty sure it won't drop to 15 again...... and that it won't rise to 1000 before the end of the year. Lol

well it would be cool if you could have one that went both ways... outputting dollars or bitcoins.

I went in this store yesterday that was just "we buy gold" . I asked him if he sold bitcoins and he said no we don't sell anything. Since he didn't ask what bitcoins were I just left instead of telling him more. it would be cool to see some franchise or store chain use bitcoin atm's though. that way they wouldn't have to dedicate manpower to them. People put different kinds of kiosks in grocery stores all the time... for instance redbox. Or coin counting machines. This would be similar. I'm not sure if the profit margin is there though

+1  .  Do you invest for a living or just for retirement purposes?

There isn't such a thing as natural growth of bitcoin. How can there be some natural growth as to the amount of people willing to say... convert their wealth from dollars to bitcoin? There can't. You can't predict how many people would do this or even really measure it. It seems that natural growth means actual usage.... but that can't be the growth pattern that bitcoin will ultimately use because it is not only just a medium of usage. It's not just a currency.

The only way you could say that bitcoin would have a natural growth is if there was programmed in the protocol a slow decrease in the value of all bitcoins over time at some small amount that would prevent people from using it as something other than just a currency.

i'm going to change the price to dollars so whatever the current value of btc are will be: 285 if buying 2.  300 each if buying 1. Will use escrow.

so at the current price of 26.... it would be 11.5 btc for 1.

I know nothing about it actually. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me though.... I mean why does it need a camera? Can't bitcoins just be sent to an address created on the fly then you scan some QR code it generates? it seems like a camera would increase the cost of the ATM. but I am probably wrong

There are tons of legitimate entrepreneurial opportunities that bitcoins provide that our traditional money systems either can't do or not as well.

Take the example of a journalist who writes and has a bitcoin address that anyone can send funds too. All the sudden this person doesn't need an advertising system in place to somehow capture whatever profit they may.

Take the example of the reddit bitcoin tip system where users can tip each other. Sound like that's easy to do with a credit card based system? Not gonna happen. And that's something that will grow to other sites and it's already being used.

Take the example of a site which has a worldwide audience. How can they offer services that easily let the entire world pay? Bitcoin is an answer for that. There are no boundaries. Any country would not be locked out. You don't need to rely on american credit cards or paypal.

Take the example of a charity who you can donate to. What method is easier than bitcoin where anyone can donate and they don't even need to sign up to donate or even give their email or make an account?

I can think of tons more but the truth is most uses haven't even been thought of yet probably.

Does anyone else get the feeling that bitcoin is just a little too powerful for it's own good.

AHA

I think the reddit news is bigger than most people think. The reason why is that it isn't just a new way to use bitcoins...  they have a bitcoin bot tip system that people are going to use and every time they do it's going to be an "in your face" advertisement of bitcoin. It will bring many people

I actually shot him an email in 2006 and he replied back. I was surprised. Anyways I emailed him earlier tonight replying to that same email.

I'll tell you what... we can make a wager . >: )

my email: " I thought I would toss an idea your way. It would be very cool if  the mobile software part of ubuntu supported bitcoin as a form of payment in the future. You would be the only mobile platform to do so and that alone would attract  (freedom-loving) users and interest. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency with no central authority. It's payments are irreversible. And if you reply to me with good news I hope you don't mind if I share it"

response: "It's a super suggestion, thank you."

I realize that isn't a yes or not but it sounds good to me anyways.

with irreversible transactions I like the idea of the burden of trust being placed with customers rather than merchants and not the other way around. It makes more sense. It's in a businesses best interest to behave. It's not in a persons. It's easier to see from user reviews how a business behaves. A customer doesn't have reviews.

off subject... how come when I reply to a PM it doesn't appear in my outbox? :T

Believe it or not it's possible to earn more than early adopters.  If you buy 1k of bitcoins now at 27 dollars and they eventually become worth... say 2700. Then that is 100X your initial investment. And it would be worth 2.7 million dollars.

If someone has 50k coins right now and they decide to bail out and sell....... they would make 1.3 million dollars. So you beat even someone with 100k coins who sells now. (aside from time)

Right now IS still early adopter phase. But it's also risky

just curious. I read that transaction times are something like 10 minutes. as asics get more powerful will this be reduced? or will bitcoin be forked?

As for the legality.......... if they treat bitcoin as any other money and you pay taxes on it is there still a legal problem with that? Even if the government is still getting the same amount in taxes they would otherwise? Wouldn't saying they couldn't accept bitcoin be like saying they couldn't accept cash?

disclaimer: I'm not a journalist so there are better opinions needed

It seems to me that journalism is one area that can really benefit from bitcoin. Here is why........ currently if a journalist wants to make an online professional career out of journalism they have to blog. Essentially they have to make money through advertising........ but that is an inefficient way to make money. Someone who loves your article may not click on any of the advertisements. And even if they do click it may not be in proportion to their level of interest. It seems to me that the ability to just bitcoin tip anyone on the net will make professional journalism have a natural kinship with bitcoin.

What may be needed is a site that congregates professional journalists and even gives them ranks. So it would be like an online version of the washington post but it could be done totally ad free. If such a thing was viable, then it might attract the best journalists with the best stories since they could make decent money. Possibly

Just a thought.