As sergio points out in another thread, Satoshi was operating the only supernode back in 2009 (and got 1M coins in compensation  ) At that point, you could be classified as a supernode if you could afford to run your computer 24/7, amend some bugs that might occur in the software, and pump your product. Satoshi did have the first two, but almost failed in the third one. I got it that he was almost quitting in late 2009 as there were no other supernodes entering the game, just some hop-on, hop-off nodes. Today the resources in the Bitcoin network are vastly higher and several bright people are entering in. Prior to 2013, you had to be lucky to find out about Bitcoin. If you were smart, but did not possess integrity, you would turn to scamming 10,000s of bitcoins from the other users. Many did this, so the development of the social and power network (and price) were anemic in 2012. 2013 will be the year for legitimate bitcoin businesses, entrepreneurs that possess organizational, financial, legal etc. muscle, which far exceeds anything seen before. I watch with amusement, the number of coins traded in the exchanges at every minor dip just as this month. These are important in transfering the coins to the hands of the new supernodes. But don't sell your coins for too cheap. If you are not in a hurry to cash out, your BTC100 will enable your retirement in luxury after 2-3 short years. Or you can develop your own organization and become a supernode now for even as little as BTC100. More will come quickly, if you set yourself to increase the stash, instead of timing a fiat cashout, which will any way turn out to be your biggest regret after 10 years |
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I deeply appreciate your perspective on the bitcoin economy as a broker, i.e. a salesperson. You see what is holding back sales of bitcoins to investors, especially in comparison with the precious metals market.
Are you suggesting that super nodes contribute code to the open source bitcoin project? Become members of the bitcoin foundation? What functions distinguish super nodes from the foreign exchange operations of the major banks? And in particular what is your view of the role of legacy banks vs brokers in the bitcoin economy?
I see the supernode classification as an interesting theoretical exercise. What has been holding back the investments of many of my wealthy clients, has been the insecurity concerning the negative "black swan" events. The prospective investors have no clue, how the bitcoin network functions; therefore they think, there is some probability that it may just "fall apart", resulting in the loss of the value of their bitcoins. What I am presenting to larger audience now, is an easy-to-understand (for the less technically oriented) structure of the network. There is no way for your bitcoins to become worth $0, as long as there is one entity capable of operating the network. A vague "consensus" of 4237 bitcoin nodes is not needed. If bitcoin suddenly becomes vulnerable, in an extreme case, if the whole devteam gets kidnapped or something as unlikely - the miners and the holders of bitcoins will just give their quiet permission for a less-capable shadow devteam, which the 1 class supernodes will host as a backup. This is not a power grab or anything, bitcoin is an open source software, and the best devteam will any way win in the long run. Actually I believe Gavin sleeps his nights better when he knows that there are 3-10 fully functional backup teams hosted by the same number of supernodes in about 6-12 months of time. Since he is no longer a single-point-of-failure, there will be no incentive to harm him, as there is no gain for doing so. |
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Fundamental evidence that would cause reconsideration would be a significant increase in bitcoin demand, such as a flood of new investors with reignited enthusiasm.
I don't think you should act in haste. But seriously, how can the price fall if this is what is happening, no matter what you or I think, duh? |
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First Class Bitcoin Supernode
- Sovereign ability to run, manage and develop the Bitcoin network in absence of any other entities.
- 24/7 monitoring, technical, and trading ability, connections with most relevant Bitcoin power centers, accounts in all relevant exchanges
- Global operation, capacity to set up activities in most jurisdictions with minimum lead times, access to all specialists (bankers, lawyers, tech) globally
- Able to generate its own funding indefinitely regardless of bitcoin exchange value, or backed by an entity wealthy enough to support the operations indefinitely in absence of cash flow from operations
- Minimum full-time staff in command&control structure: 5-10
Second Class Bitcoin Supernode
- Able to run, although probably not effectively develop, the Bitcoin network in absence of other entities. The end user of Bitcoin will notice if the service level falls to the second class. This will lead to delays and blackouts of important services.
- Real-time alerts in place to activate the relevant parts of the organization if something worth their effort happens in Bitcoinworld. Position management in multiple trading platforms, good connections to several other supernodes.
- Can project force to other jurisdictions, albeit with considerable effort and lead time
- Can function independently of external funding as long as Bitcoin's price does not totally collapse, (or has enough external funding to not care)
- Minimum number of dedicated permanent staff: 2-3
Third Class Bitcoin Supernode
- May or may not run a Bitcoin node, cannot likely summon the resources to fix the protocol if need be, may be entirely non-tech
- Actively follows what happens in Bitcoinworld. Reasonably well connected to at least some other supernodes.
- Mainly a local operation.
- Owns enough bitcoins, income-generating bitcoin or other businesses, or other assets, to continue operations at the desired level infinitely (note - the marginal cost of operation on this level is essentially zero)
- Minimum number of people: 1 part-time
- In order to be classified as a supernode, there either needs to be a good number of bitcoins in possession, mining capacity, bitcoin tradership, dealership or other business or publishing organisation.
Capability of a Supernode
The capability of a Bitcoin supernode can be expressed in a pseudologarithmic scale from 0.0 to 5.0., where
- 1.0 is an essentially perfect small operation
- 3.0 is the threshold of being classified as a supernode
- 5.0 is an interested newbie smart enough to understand the basics.
I have been trying to explain the transition of Bitcoin from the alpha/beta stage to the mainstream. I developed the supernode framework to give the reader some understanding of the magnitude of the change that we are undergoing. As I see it, any of the public power centers of Bitcoinworld, do not currently even qualify to the first class. This can be readily observed by the number of scams and hacks, and inadequate organizational and financial resources of most of the actors.
There are currently hundreds of organizations in the world, capable of developing a 1.0 supernode in 3-6 months, if they decide to enter in. None of the current (public) players possesses such an ability now, and even though many may be interested, their rate of capability increase (the time in days, to move one decimal in the supernode capability scale) is behind that of the potential new entrants.
2013 will be an interesting year, for the mainstream adoption and price appreciation of course, but also for some serious behind-the-scenes action. I realize that most people have a difficulty of understanding that bitcoin's price does not have a stable value between $0 and $300k (in fact I only myself realized it a week ago!), and because of this new understanding how the bitcoin power network functions, the probability of it going to zero is rather slim indeed. Seeing $115 ever again seems unlikely to me.
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LOL somebody wants cheap bitcoins. Sell to him, if you prefer him to have them!  |
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Trading while intoxicated however, seems the same as drunk driving - a recipe for disaster. Do not drink and trade! Also I advise not smoking pot while trading - I note that Mt.Gox does not have a 'are you sure' confirmation dialog before accepting the order, and if the market is at 120 and you mistype and issue a sell limit for 12, it will in fact sell at 12 and not give you the market price - right?
The new hardcore is getting harder by the day... Mt.Gox has its history of fulfilling market orders simultaneously from the buy and sell side, with a 30% spread. From their own published data, I can read that 40k BTC changed hands after the longer cooloff period, before the shorter one was announced, at an effective slippage of 10% on average. For their own sake, I hope that this $300,000 did indeed end up in the lap of the legitimate counterparties of the trades. Even if not, it is not at all too late to amend the losers by returning the spread to them. My proposal would be that Mt.Gox calculates the 5-minute average of the trades during that period, and gives restitution to both buyers and sellers, if their trade was executed at a price which is disadvantageous compared to the 5-minute average. After all, they promised that the trades would be void of fees..  |
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That's right. Just sell - my wire only clears after several hours, so you have plenty of time to take it to 80 now..
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I was quoted $200 for such a service. (I did not order it.)
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Maybe dice whatever btc I have left.
There's a good rule to not make too much stupid things at once, because they tend to multiply if you follow that road. I.e., lost everything gambling - don't go jumping off a bridge, that'll make things worse. Made a very bad trading decision? Don't follow up with a much stupider idea to try and recoup losses through gambling. Remember, one stupid thing per month. That can work  I gave out some Bitcoins today, and enforced a rule that the receiver can do whatever they want, as long as the number of BTC in the cold wallet is not reduced by more than 1%, in any given month. Try it with yourself, might work. If not "enough" BTC, go to work and earn some |
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I'm in the process of moving everything offline again.
Care to reveal your average entry point in 1-4/2013? Mine is about $75. He doesn't have any coins Of course he has, probably more than me. Employ your logic - |
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There never was a "2013 bubble", not yet at least. Nothing there in the monthly chart. Sorry.
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The spirit of the Wall Observer cannot be quenched. I feel we are entering an interesting new age, gentlemen.
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We can post our private shitlist in public, can't we? (I mean, is it forbidden by the forum rules?) Just start a self-moderated thread on who in your opinion are scammers.
If you are powerful enough, people will just follow your thread, in addition to the SCAMMER tags (not) doled out by the administration of the forum. Or start your own forum. Bitcoin is open-source, and many people have yet to grasp the true significance of it.
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Are narcissists allowed to go on the joke thread?
Sorry.  The brag part was bordering off-topic. |
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If the following poster quoted your comment in its entirety, I typically prune the conversation by deleting all the comments that were included in the quote. I have deleted about 90% of all comments, including my own, if they were nicely quoted by someone else, whose comment I wanted to remain in the thread. [EDIT: IF this is hijacked so that the poster deletes his comment, which includes the only surviving part of some discussion, I will need to alter the method. Please don't delete your own comments from this thread, unless you are sure they would be deleted anyway by me.] If the comment is not developed by anyone in about 24-48 hours, I typically delete it, unless there is great value. If the comment is stupid, I instantly delete it. Please continue posting, I appreciate the discussion between you, cypher & Qoheleth. Just doing some pruning I take it? ... or would you like me to refrain from posting in your 'diary' thread? A reply of yours, quoted below, was deleted by the starter of a self-moderated topic. There are no rules of self-moderation, so this deletion cannot be appealed. Do not continue posting in this topic if the topic-starter has requested that you leave. You can create a new topic if you are unsatisfied with this one. If the topic-starter is scamming, post about it in Scam Accusations. Interesting analysis ... what would be the electronic modern equivalent of the "real bill"? ... this seems like key monetary instrument for a healthy financial system, after the gold/commodity reserve asset.
I think there might a tool out there already that could begin issuing these, if a good description of its monetary properties were put forward I could probably go about getting it implemented quite quickly. |
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We are in bear mode! Doesn't someone want to short!
I am always willing to short, but not on bad odds. |
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You do realize that you are in a community where any service operator who can't achieve more than 99.999% uptime will get crucified on the cross of shame and be spitted on? Geeks don't give a damn about your fancy order-matching idea, and how a real world exchange should operate, if you dare to entertain with the idea of an exchange not having to process orders real-time every second 24*7, you will get strapped of your badge of nerdiness and ostracized forever.  The world does not need authoritative bitcoin prices any more than every 8 hours. This is more than 1000 times per year, ff'ss! (I may be wrong, since 640k indeed was not enough to contain the blockchain!) There will be no real time exchange in my system at all. For that, you will need to visit the casinos, where I will continue to play with my BTC1,000 playstash whenever I feel like, as do all my friends, enriching themselves in expense of the sheep. Not that I needed to be enriched any more, or even that the shearing of the sheep was fun, but all this is required to keep the buzz on Bitcoin going. Expect more scandals!  I have already taken measures, how to survive the coming ostracision. I only need to take 76% of the network with me. If you want to join my Bitcoin shadow devteam, drop a PM! |
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Some of my thoughts on gold and silver manipulation: London Fix price is from the London Bullion Exchange, a physical market. Why is it not diverging form COMEX?
There is more to a market than fixing price. What matters to the manipulators, is whether they actually need to cede the physical possession of the gold to the buyer. Even if the gold is physical, if the buyer does not take delivery, it can still be used as part of the fractional reserve. Then there is volume: You can try to convince people that gold's value has dropped, by giving it out for a lower price than would be the case without your actions. The silver market was inundated with actual, physical silver, coming from the manipulators' controlled holds, repeatedly several times post-1865. The demonetization of silver was a glut of physical silver dumped to the market on purpose. But you can only do this if you have the metal, and you are willing to part with it. TPTB do not hold gold religiously, they may dump it to burn speculators, if they want, given opportune time. While dumping, they probably don't need to lose control of more than 10% of their physical holdings, but they can completely destroy the price for years to come. In 2008 the actual value of gold was higher than the controlled "physical" price, because the seller was unwilling to sell at the "official price". Behind the scenes, many things happened. The situation was even more pronounced in silver, I could buy from some refineries etc., some silver for the "official price" of <$9/oz. Some of them knew I was playing the game, ready to publish if they refuse to sell, some others were probably ignorant of the whole thing. For them, the scrap supply was steadily coming and they just bought and sold according to the LBMA. But I could sell all the silver that I managed to buy, for 35%-50% more, which was the street price (it never changed, just the "official price" crashed and recovered in 2008-2009) and I made my fortune. Of course it wasn't risk free, at one point all my property was confiscated by the government of Finland etc. Making money is not forbidden, speaking out is was. I don't believe I am in any danger now, since everything I say is already public information and the gold cartel does not have a way to win the battle with crypto. (If it does, I don't know what it is, and that makes me harmless since I cannot prevent something that I don't believe exists ) I control about 50 ounces of gold, just in case it will retain its importance. Never sell out anything. Never go short anything. If you stick to these, and possess a certain intelligence, you will minimize risks, and likely become very wealthy. Also, quit reading newspapers and watching TV and believing anything anyone says. Be wary for everything that was invented between 1913-2013, the "dark ages" of humanity. Preferably live in old houses and definitely eat organic food. You will live longer. The more this kind of people exist in the world, the less TPTB can do anything about it. And if we keep them in check and just live our lives as we want to, isn't this the whole point of the exercise? Soon they will join us. |
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LOL why don't I have access to such odds??  Do I need to post more or better, before people take me seriously..? |
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Must read, clarifies your thoughts on the price (3 min only).The "double auction" method described, is the way I also would solve the fiat/BTC problem. Coupled with a Dealer Network, where only the members have access to the auction, and the general public either buys from them OTC or uses the real-time exchanges, which are relegated to a marginal "casino" role, where the bulls and bears both win, only sheep get slaughtered. Long term transfer of coin-denominated wealth would go the route of "large private holds -> Dealer Network (most of these by design have large holds themselves and may therefore easily unload their own holdings) -> paper wallets of the new adopters".
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