Oh, then surely you know very well that a dollar in China is worth more than a dollar in the United States.

I would think the cost gets smaller as the price decreases and confidence diminishes. I have dreamed up numerous strategies, but I honestly don't know, and I'd love to see an intelligent discussion on the topic.

That IS an inherent utility value! However, I question whether it is a scarce utility. Numerous (even inferior) alternate chains can provide these utilities. Perhaps the bitcoin network will make it more secure and its size will make transactions more obscure, such that its network effect will make alternatives worthless, but I am not yet sure.

I don't give that any chance of being implemented, effective, nor trusted.

You are being silly. Perhaps exchanging a dollar has extra costs, but I promise if $1000 landed in your pocket, it would be worth several fine dinners and toys where ever you are. I don't use dollars every day either, but I won't pretend it has no value to me today.

+1
Yes. I think merchants rating merchants would also be beneficial.

I think the discussion of 'backing' is nonsense. The cryptography and hash difficulty of bitcoin is analogous to anti-counterfeiting measures. Neither of these say anything of the exchange value of the currency. Only the authenticity of each unit.

The unique properties of gold make it difficult to fake and these add to its utility value as a money, it's scarcity only speaks of stability, but neither say anything of its exchange value. Only supply and demand. Same with bitcoins and dollars. Each provide different utilities as money with very different supply rates and demand.

Both dollars and bitcoin are backed by a mutable value denominated in that same value.

If the value of a dollar was reduced to the value of a grain of salt, then taxes would be similarly related to a grain of salt.

Bitcoin value is backed by the electricity cost while the electricity cost maintains a strong correlation to the value of a bitcoin. If a bitcoin were worth one grain of salt, the electricity cost would be roughly one grain of salt.

However, bitcoin transactions have a utility value, and the value of a bitcoin will eventually be determined by the market's assertion of a transaction fee. But we haven't seen real market values because we have not met any practical limits.

Ha ha ha ha... You saw that? It also didn't help that it was 04:00 in the morning my time.

Log0s, while no money has (to my knowledge) been a currency first then a commodity with utility, I don't think the chronology of suspended disbelief is relevant. However related, what is relevant in my opinion, is that a money has a base value. Gold can never hyperinflate for two reasons: not only predictable scarcity, but an inherent base utility and value.

However, as Wareen witnessed in my previous masturbation of calculus, I believe a bitcoin transaction's only inherent value is its utility as a superior transaction. Unfortunately the value of each bitcoin is only supported by the friction of its transaction rate, which if you followed my masterpiece above, is practically unlimited.

Wareen, it is arguable whether bitcoin is a good INHERENT store of value.  You've certainly got two years of history on the side of your argument. However, what prevents a sufficiently determined central bank from maintaining a bitcoin exchange rate plunge? Could this central bank maintain the plunge even with a growing user base? I posit yes, but I am at a loss to quantify the cost (you can bet I've already re-edited this post several times trying ).

Technomage, the collapse of M3 appreciates M0 dollars, sufficiently that tripling M0 has had no net effect on the gross money supply. All money is faith, it's just the level of abstraction people are willing to accept or ignore.

The number of bitcoins remained relatively fixed. Obviously the number of dollars was almost ten times greater when the price was ten times greater. You would therefor expect to see ten times more volume in dollar currency. But I think it is more relevant to look at the number of trades in bitcoin, rather than the number of dollars traded.

I don't recommend commanding the tupilak to "eat me!" ... but just to be on the safe side, I'll do a bit more research.

my money is still counting on my last words.

I have serious concerns regarding bitcoin's susceptibility to price manipulation by a determined entity with deep pockets. I also question its inherent value and scarcity.

Currently the inherent value of a bitcoin is self-reflexive - the cost of producing a bitcoin - determined by the rate at which they are generated. The entire utility of a bitcoin is not the coin but the protocol, neither of which have a utility cost to the user currently. As long as the exchange price decreases (which we should expect with its current inherently massive monetary inflation), the velocity of exchange should reflect its use purely as an exchange of value but not a store of value. In other words, the only immediately rational purpose of a bitcoin today is to exchange for fiat, transact, confirm, then sell the bitcoin as quickly as possible to the next transacting party. With 100-500 million confirmed transactions possible each day, we are not reaching any theoretic limitations. Bitcoins are not scarce and are grossly over bought.

I believe Satoshi was correct to bestow an eventual greater role to transaction fees over block rewards. When a transaction has a cost, then we can measure the market value of a bitcoin transaction. Unfortunately the value of a bitcoin is more difficult to measure because the cost of a transaction is generally independent of the number of bitcoins sent. The inherent value of a bitcoin is not the cost of electricity, it is only the utility value of the secure transactions that bitcoin make possible.

An international bank transfer cost me 5 EUR and took a short week. Apparently I'm willing to give my credit card company 2% of my instantaneous purchases, perhaps 0.5 EUR per transaction. A one hour confirmed bitcoin transaction costs (at most) 0.0005 BTC. Even if bitcoin were used only as a transaction protocol, we never denominated prices in bitcoin, but could be used everywhere credit cards are accepted today, would 1 BTC = 1000 EUR ? I think I'm bullish again!

I'm starting to agree with the grumpy old Austrians who believe a currency must have value in and of itself -- the same argument applies to fiat backed by debt or "In god we trust".

The PPT could push the price of gold as low as they want, but ultimately, regardless of what the markets say, I'll definitely buy a chunk of gold for a few dollars, no matter what I can sell it for. Bitcoin price (irrespective of the value of the protocol) is entirely based on speculation. If the user base is great enough and the price low enough, the velocity of exchange will simply increase (inflation) and that's actually where bitcoins are ideal, high velocity trade. Bitcoin can actually continue to depreciate if people buy it only long enough to make a trade and sell. Billions of people could use it every day, yet the price could be suppressed if no one believes the coin itself has value.

Anyway, as far as the price of bitcoin this minute, if bitcoin crosses under $4.05 it will crash again.

In reference to the OP...
Yes. I sincerely agree. It is a terrible disgrace to the good name of bitcoin that we have rampant, hateful, immature, greedy scammers on this forum and that the moderators are not enforcing some common human decency, nor protecting the newbies and gullible victims.

How immature, impolite, and disrespectful. Please see previous quote. Oh, that was yours!




EDIT: This post was a bit snarky toward Theymos, who I thought was censoring us. That is not the case, as he clarified to me. I'll keep the above for posterity. So, carry on lynch mob carry on...

From the Bitcoin7.com - Brand new exchange market! thread, Mr. FNIB said (under another nick?):

The scam patrol here never ceases to amaze!!! How many btc for a ride on the guillotine?

All currency was something or was redemable for something. That something may have been later taken away, but log0s statement stands. A currency is a generally accepted medium of exchange. Implied is that a currency was first exchanged, rather than a currency first, then exchanged.

Clearly commodities were traded before some were generally accepted as currency. I am not aware of any fiat currency established without first backing it by something else. Even the euro was backed by sovereign currency pegs that were backed by the dollar that was at one point backed by gold and silver. That bitcoins are backed by processing power or cryptography is an entirely new 'something' that might be difficult for many to 'generally accept'.

Hey Hawker, are you in the market for a necromorphic curse? Perhaps it's entirely within the law, even if effective.

Here's a story Knud Rasmussen collected prior to 1921

NUKÚNGUASIK, WHO ESCAPED FROM THE TUPILAK

NUKÚNGUASIK, it is said, had land in a place with many brothers. When the brothers made a catch, they gave him meat for the pot; he himself had no wife. One day he rowed northward in his kayak, and suddenly he took it into his head to row over to a big island which he had never visited before, and now wished to see. He landed, and went up to look at the land, and it was very beautiful there.

 And here he came upon the middle one of many brothers, busy with something or other down in a hollow, and whispering all the time. So he crawled stealthily towards him, and when he had come closer, he heard him whispering these words:

 "You are to bite Nukúnguasik to death; you are to bite Nukúnguasik to death."

 And then it was clear that he was making a Tupilak, and stood there now telling it what to do. But suddenly Nukúnguasik slapped him on the side and said: "But where is this Nukúnguasik?"

 And the man was so frightened at this that he fell down dead.

 And then Nukúnguasik saw that the man had been letting the Tupilak sniff at his body. And the Tupilak was now alive, and lay there sniffing. But Nukúnguasik, being afraid of the Tupilak....

(I'll let you finish the second half of the story from whence I nicked it http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/inu/eft/eft07.htm)

Interesting. I'd like to know a bit more about these witches. Are they related to krasue ghosts? Do they use artifacts like tupilak or voodoo dolls?



In Greenland, there are shamans but they are not evil. I don't think there's a tradition of an 'occupational witch' conjuring devious plans alone. They say there is no such word 'alone' rather, in the arctic one is 'dead'. There is a tradition of qivitoq which is something like wanderer spirit. People removed themselves from the community due to shame, elderly who wish not to be a burden, women who couldn't bare children, etc. Basically they wander off into the cold and return to nature. If their body is not found, perhaps they are still wandering, most certainly as a spirit, for no one can survive the winter darkness alone. Many abnormalities and misfortune are attributed to the qivitoq spirit.

Creating tupilak was not an occupational tradition, but very personal and secret. It is believed that often someone dies because someone/thing willed him harm. A hunter who disrespects his prey may be killed by the offended animal spirit or a jealous lover may have created a tupilak leading to his misfortune. I believe there were a lot more deaths attributed to tupilak than the number of cursed tupilak ever created, but we'll never know.

IFF a government/corporation is actively destroying bitcoin, they will win. period.

It's possible to calculate this if you've kept record of your own performance. Choose a time scale (long, mid, short), consult public postings since you got into bitcoin and consistently follow the suggestions (hypothetically buy or sell 50% at the price 12 hours after the public post timestamp), trigger stop losses when necessary. Then compare your actual performance with this hypothetical history minus fees.

Perhaps you could just post the command and let us dissect it, after a few hints to gawk, and where the stream is coming from. Then your video will make better sense in context.