|
so in 4 months the eta dropped by a month? Hmmm. if we extrapolate that then we are looking at maybe March of 2016? March of 2016 = 26 months... so 26/4 = 6.5 months . 9/2016 - 6.5 months = around march of 2016
|
|
|
|
|
changes need to focus on the root of problems. Part of the problem with government is that over time it gets bigger. To prevent that you need to limit it's funding. So the two areas you need to focus on are limiting the funding of government and also making the elected representatives honest. You can limit funding by not allowing the government to borrow. It would then be forced to either tax or create it's own money. Tax is fine since it is a very visible thing and if it got crazy people would revolt.. unlike how they are taxing now through their mutually beneficial relationship with the fed and how they create money. So if they are forced to create their money then you can do a couple of things.... you can make it so that they have to tax back what they create in the same year. Or you could simply let them create at will and have that currency be a government currency and it would compete against public currencies (fairly) in the free market. If they inflated it then it would just hurt themselves and their workers.
For accountability you need open source voting systems... preferably using something like the bitcoin blockchain idea. You also need representatives who are willing to be audited financially by the public at any time. You need to get the money out by stopping lobbying.
|
|
|
|
The deeper more liquid market is the result of the amount of USD on the BTC exchanges, not the exchange rate of the coins. If their were only $100 on exchanges then that would be the liquidity (in terms of dollars) irregardless of the exchange rate. You tend to THINK of liquidity being caused by exchanges rates because the USD depth is the main driver of the exchange rate, so they move in sync most of the time. But falling depth of BTC has also been a significant factor in the last year and at certain times is the primary driver of exchanges rates, at times the coin and dollar depth can be dropping (meaning less liquidity) but because coins are dropping faster it means exchange rates rise even as liquidity drops so the two things are not hard-correlated, only soft-correlated.
By "at times" do you mean temporary moments in time? If so that is irrelevant. The deeper more liquid market is the result of the amount of USD on the BTC exchanges, not the exchange rate of the coins. It's impossible to escape that the two are linked. The profit incentive is too great to not have an amount of liquidity on an exchange that is in some proportion with the price. One only needs to take a cursory look at gold markets to see that. The higher price attracts not only more money but it involves more people. People who are willing to undercut each other so instead of being out of bitcoin and buying back in at 10% less someone will buy back in at 8% and 7% and so on. |
|
|
|
|
The price of bitcoin matters for several reasons. A higher price means that the the price itself is more stable. Price is also linked to volume so the amount of value flowing through bitcoin would be higher. This makes it easier to do things like buy a car for instance. Imagine if you used litecoin and tried to buy a 300k lamborghini and the dealership accepted litecoin with a processor like bitpay. There isn't enough volume to lock in a good deal so you would be forced to pay a price far below what the going rate is. A higher price means more market depth which means the spread between the bid price and the ask price is small. That is actually very important because it makes bitcoin cheaper to use. Want to do remittance from one currency > bitcoin > another currency? Then the price matters. A higher price will ultimately make things cheaper. Want to pay for porn but not give up private info? Then it would actually be cheaper to do if bitcoin was 10k vs 1k because the market depth would be greater and the spread between the bid price and ask price would be less. You would save value. Gold has really deep markets and the spread between the bid price and ask price is small.... so if you bought gold and could turn right around and electronically spend it somewhere then you wouldn't lose much at all.
There are also other benefits to a higher price.... it means it would be even more attractive to instiutional investors (who would not bother with something that is too small). It also would mean the ecosystem is larger because of potential profits so there would be more competition between exchanges and atms... which means there would be lower fees for using them.
|
|
|
|
|
One common thread I often see is "why should your average consumer purchase with bitcoins rather than with a credit card?"
There are some valid reasons often cited but one point I don't see ever made is: "because you already have bitcoins".
If you already have bitcoins then it would be cumbersome to convert them to cash on an exchange and then wire the money around to then use a more traditional payment method *if* you could just purchase the item directly with bitcoin.
So the question then becomes "why would people already have bitcoins?"
Here is why it might happen.... from the standpoint of a merchant it is a clear advantage to accept bitcoin. By accepting it you automatically increase the possible size of your user base. If you are an online website, for instance, someone from another side of the world could pay you easily. You get your money faster than with credit cards (typically one day rather than a week or more) . Fraud is impossible so there aren't any chargebacks to worry about. And the cost of implementing bitcoin acceptance is usually negligible. At the most basic level you could do what pirate bay did and simply paste a public address on your site. Or you could do it through other ways..... for instance shopify has bitcoin integration.
The point is that as more and more merchants accept bitcoin because of clear advantages they will seek to take advantage even more... by paying employees in bitcoin. They can typically save an additional amount if they do not have to convert all of their bitcoins into dollars with payment processors like bitpay. If employees accept such offers to be partially paid in bitcoins then "they will already have bitcoins". Which relates to my first point. So now the question becomes why would employees accept to be paid in bitcoins? Here are a couple of reasons.... if the price is eventually stable enough, and bitcoin is accepted widely enough then it might be a good idea to have part of your salary in bitcoins because some of that cost that is saved on the merchants side could be passed on to you. Or it would be advantageous because you know that by having bitcoins and it was widely accepted you could spend them while travelling or while later retiring to another part of the world and therefore not have to convert to another currency. Or it could be that the price was stable but also enticing because it did not lose value like dollars do on a longer term basis.
|
|
|
|
|
A higher price does make things cheaper. THe reason is because with deeper markets it means that there is less spread between the bid/ask and there is more volume. If you are transferring larger amounts of money you lose less money on the spread between bid and ask and for smaller transactions its even less. The spread on gold prices for instance which have very deep markets is less than a half of a percent. That spread is a real cost for things like remittance and just buying bitcoin and turning around and purchasing things with it. Also typically the higher the price is it means the bitcoin ecosystem is larger and since it is still a free market that means more competition between exchanges and ATM's for lower fees.
In essence a higher price means bitcoin is more useful so people who say that the price doesn't matter are wrong.
|
|
|
|
|
I don't think the infrastructure is there for that. Not enough exchanges and ATM's yet or the ability for institutional investors to invest (like the winklevoss ETF that isn't approved) . If all of that was in place then maybe as long as the banks stopped trying to slow things down
|
|
|
|
|
I'm not sure that I really buy the whole hitmen thing. Everything I read about DPR seems to fit with him being the owner of silk road but that seems like an anomaly in his character. Someone who actually believes they are a pioneer of freedom doesn't just start committing acts against peoples most basic rights.
I consider myself pretty libertarian... I am not sure what the best solution for roads would be though.
|
|
|
|
|
does the merchant gain anything by paying employees in bitcoin rather than cash? Lets say that the merchant also earns bitcoins by selling some service or goods. I suppose the merchant would not have to convert the portion of pay they are paying employees in bitcoin to cash therefore there is no 1% loss on that portion. But are there any costs in general for paying employees with cash? Would a bitcoin only system make payroll easier for instance?
|
|
|
|
|
did he really think he was uncatchable?
|
|
|
|
I see. So what you're saying is that the higher the price goes, the less it is worth.
Yes, you are very funny. No, what I mean is that, the higher the price, the bigger the selling pressure coming from miners becomes. See here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=414657.0That argument doesn't make sense. Why would you treat miners different than holders of coin? Do they have mining costs? Sure. They have costs incurred that results in them getting bitcoins. Where do the people who are not miners get their coins? They buy them. So they have costs as well. Does the price going up somehow drive them to sell because they incurred costs to buy bitcoin? |
|
|
|
what would it be? "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution; I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its constitution," Jefferson wrote. "I mean an additional article taking from the federal government the power of borrowing. I think that is pretty good but it might allow for loopholes. I think a better approach would be make sure that the government had to actually tax money before it could spend it. in this way they couldn't borrow money and they also couldn't just create it themselves. I think it would be possible to let government create their own money on the condition that it was all taxed back from circulation. |
|
|
|
The most basic freedom of all is the right to own ones own body. If you own your own body... then you can decide what you eat for dinner.
What if I want to eat people? lol. But I agree, it's none of the governments business when you or I put into our bodies or what we do with them as long as it's not causing harm to any one else. the right to own ones own body doesn't mean the right to own someone elses body |
|
|
|
...how is it that society thinks it is constitutional for them to "vote" what we can do with our own bodies? For instance..... prostitution.
just something to think about... what if in some place and time people looked around and saw that some of the most oppressed, with rights routinely violated, were prostitutes? (pimps, gansters, drugs, etc) The crime that happens around drugs and prostitution is because it is illegal, forming a black market. If it was legal it would be as crimeless as walking into a bakery |
|
|
|
|
big steel keg, ikea bed frame, keetsa mattress, netbook, hangers, domain names, pizza. I would also buy a BMW R nine T if it was available for purchase with btc but it isn't
|
|
|
|
|
I personally wouldn't but I can see people who might. 2 % seems expensive... If I was going to use them I would try to get the lowest coverage possible.... like 10k or somemthing even if the coins were worth 500k + and just rely on their good storage.
|
|
|
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1v29i3/in_response_to_7_things_bitcoin_cant_do/"Though Bitcoin payments are fast, they are not instantaneous. It typically takes over 10 minutes to clear a transaction, which must be recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain"
Bitcoin is a protocol for money... it's a platform meant to be built on top of. That means in the future you will see things being built on top of it that will take transactions off the blockchain. For instance an exchange does this. When you buy dollars on mt gox you don't have to wait 10 minutes. The transaction is off the blockchain... it's instant. Additionally transactions can happen near instantly it just depends on the risk you are willing to take. A transaction will propagate across the network faster than 8 minutes but it won't be included in a block yet. If you are a company like newegg you can accept the transaction instantly because you aren't shipping the item immediately anyway . So many transactions could be done fast even without a layer on top of the protocol. One last thing....... when you buy with a credit card even though the transaction seems instantaneous the funds don't actually arrive to the merchant for a week or more later. When a bitcoin transaction is included in the block chain the funds have arrived. For merchants that is a clear win.
"Consumers can't unilaterally undo a Bitcoin transaction like they can a credit card payment. However, the Bitcoin protocol is being updated to better facilitate refunds initiated by the merchant."
The answer to this is related to my previous answer. A transaction is irreversible but that doesn't mean something can't be built on top. For instance if ebay wanted to accept bitcoins they could have users upload bitcoin funds and do transfers internally off the block chain. In this way they could control and reverse transactions. And as a side note.... it is in a merchants best interest to act in an honest manner. It is in a consumers best interest to act in a malicious manner. It makes more sense to have the burden of trust placed on customers rather than merchants because of these natural signals. A merchant has reviews. They need to keep a positive image to retain customers. Customers don't have reviews. It is in their best interest to defraud merchants. Why do people think that is okay? Also irreversible transactions allows for new business models that really couldn't be viable before. For instance the sale of virtual goods. If you tried to sell something like WoW gold on ebay the merchant easily gets scammed so it is not a viable business model. With bitcoin... transactions are irreversible and you can build things on top of the blockchain that can do reversals so it is the best of both worlds.
" Governments typically do not accept taxes in anything other than the official currency, but there are efforts to introduce bitcoin into the mix. E-Gov Link, for example, accepts bitcoins for parking tickets and other fees."
Well I don't see this one changing any time soon unfortunately. In a truly free market currencies would be allowed to compete with each other and a government should simply accept currencies at their current exchange rate and not give special privileges (the dollar is created by the Fed who are private).
"Though there are concerns about criminals using bitcoins to launder funds, the digital currency is a bad way to cover one's tracks. Since each transaction is recorded publicly, Bitcoin users are establishing a trail that anyone can follow"
For the average user this is probably true. However things are in the works like darkwallet... zerocoin. If bitcoin is allowed it essentially allows all alt coins so if there is an alt coin that is completely anonymous you would be able to buy it easily with bitcoin. Also there are "mixing" services where you can try to launder your coins but it is still somewhat traceable. The only way to move significant amounts of money into or out of bitcoin is through exchanges so if those are regulated then money laundering isn't exactly easy (I think that is a good thing right?) .
" Mortgages
A few homes have been listed for sale in bitcoins, but buyers must have the funds on hand. Regulatory issues and the volatility of Bitcoin's value preclude mortgages priced in the virtual currency"
Notice the keyword here "priced in the virtual currency" . You can simply not price it in the virtual currency but pay with it. Also to be technical bitcoin is considered a "digital currency" not a virtual one. I have also read real estate offers where bitcoin could be used as partial payment which means you don't need to have the entire funds.
"Lend Money into Existence
Because there is a fixed supply of bitcoins, it's impossible to simultaneously store a bitcoin in a blockchain address and lend it out, as banks do with deposits. However, firms could issue IOUs for bitcoins, which could then be used as a method of payment."
Is Creating money from nothing and lending it out at interest something we want? A better criticism would have been "you can't make loans in bitcoin because it is a deflationary currency and the borrower may inevitably default on their loan" .
Anyways to answer this question... you could create money with bitcoin. You can color a coin. You could take a single satoshi and color it and call it new money that is worth some large amount, then lend it. So the question is not if you can loan money into existence..... the question is actually why would the market accept that money?
"Avoid Infringement Claims
Many digital currencies have been built on top of the Bitcoin protocol, including the infamous Kanye West-themed Coinye. West sent a cease-and-desist letter to Coinye's developers, prompting Coinye to change its mascot to a "half-man-half-fish hybrid" that still bears a passing resemblance to the celebrity who inspired it. (Image: Bloomberg News)"
Patent troll companies are really the scum of the earth. Who knows what they will try to come up with in relation to bitcoin. On the plus side.... the bitcoin ecosystem is full of intelligent people who will ardently defend it. Also decentralization helps.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
