How much to undo what you just did to my brain?

More importantly, what's the current ask for BJ/BTC?

I agree with everything you said but this:


Speculators aren't the problem.  Speculation is - or more to the point, the root problem is that BitCoin is deflationary, which creates massive speculation.

I think the falling value is great for BC since it will wash out many speculators, but I'm afraid we'll just run into another bubble once we bounce off the fundamental utility value.  It too will pop and we'll run all the way down again to the fundamental value.  More adoption will make the floor higher and the bubbles bigger (which is what speculators are betting on), but bubbles will drastically inhibit adoption.

Anyway, the fix isn't to blame speculators.  They're a natural consequence of having a market.  The fault is BitCoin's design.  The fix is to make BitCoin no longer (potentially) wildly deflationary.  I currently favor demurrage and dynamic inflation.  I don't think it'll ever happen in BitCoin, but another cryptocurrency will come along to replace it.  Then the speculators will go home on their own.

The fundamentals don't support $5/BTC, so the price is supported by speculation.  Speculation is unstable.

So no.

You mined a little bit with a pool (probably Eligius) which pays out directly in generated coins (the new coins which come into existence with each new block).  That's your payout.

I agree that it's a zombie, but I'm not sure the end is in sight yet.  I'm about as bearish as you can be and still post here, but I don't think the linear fall will continue all the way down; it'll eventually reveal itself as a hyperbola.  The small valuation makes it easy to prop up with little influx, and naive speculators will think that it's finally nearly as low as it can go and it's time to buy back in, and/or that the pittance of value they have left isn't worth selling until the Great Recovery.  I think that will become apparent and slow (but not reverse) the fall around $2-$1.

I know the bulls are pushing the log charts lately, but I love them too:



When people think "it can't possibly go any lower now!", log charts show that there is indeed a whole lot of empty white space on the bottom right where it can, in fact, keep going.

According to Bitcoinica, they hedge their positions.  So, Bitcoinica buys it from you, then immediately sells it to someone else (either their own bidders or on MtGox).

I thought so too in June, but they picked up right where they left off.  They didn't earn anything on trades during that time, but it certainly doesn't appear their customer base fled.

If, not when.  I think it is very likely that another cryptocurrency may eclipse Bitcoin.  The wild speculation may prevent Bitcoin from being widely adopted.  Demurrage and dynamic inflation could fix it, but they're unlikely to be adopted in the current block chain.  And if they are adopted, it would prevent the staggering returns you hope for.



Yes, and I have.  I only have a small slush fund for micropayments.  Until the market returns to what I consider to be the fundamental value based on utility (cents, not dollars, see my analysis in other threads), I'm keeping my money elsewhere.

Just to double check, what does it say for "Blocks" on the lower right?

Do your addresses show up if you open the Address Book?

Are you sure you're working from a recent backup (less than 100 transactions performed)?

Could you let me know your address so I can have a look in blockexplorer to see if there's anything weird?  You can PM me if you don't want to post it publicly.

Don't forget that the gold supply is also expanding:



That's new production.  We'd have to integrate it or find another source to see the total supply over time.

It'd be interesting to see a long term plot of gold supply vs. dollar supply vs. $/oz.

Edit: And another thought.  The cost of production is around $330/oz.  That makes mining extremely profitable at these prices.  Is there any reason to doubt that, just like BitCoin, in the long run the high prices will bring in tons of mining capacity until the system reaches equilibrium again (probably with both a higher cost of production and a lower price of gold)?

/b/ is the endgame of complete un-moderation.  It performed some amusing feats along the way, but at this point it's just a wasteland.

IMHO un-moderation only works with small communities where everyone knows each other.  Once you grow beyond that, you have to get involved.  That doesn't mean swinging a banhammer around every day.  All it takes is someone to PM people when they're going too far, lock threads when they drift too far from the forum's purpose, and generally play peacemaker from time to time.

Even when that works, the tight-knit community just loses that great feel once it gets too big.  I've been through this many times.

+1 about greed, then envy, then hate...  Things get ugly when money is involved, especially when it's so dynamic that people are winning and losing a lot fast.  I think it's starting to improve, though the scandals will keep the bad vibes going for a while.

I hope that as the price declines the speculators and cheerleaders and scammers and the people who're encouraging and trolling all of the above will gradually wash out and we can get back to trying to make a real currency, and perhaps even an economy.  It's going to take months or years of people trying to create another bubble to Get Rich Quick, or recoup their losses, but hopefully we'll get there.  I'm a bear (I'll not rehash it all here, but it's all in my post history), and I hope that as BTC devalues back down toward its fundamental value (cents, not dollars), the community will improve.

Fractional reserve actually started with gold receipts.  As government-issued currency took over, the existing system was just continued.  Banks love it of course - it means that we basically have to keep getting more and more in debt to them to keep the money supply expanding, until they own everything (and they're not far from it).

Governments don't get much out of it, but no one wants to unwind the system: gradually contracting the money supply would be an economic drag, and politicians are all about what will get them reelected in a few years.  And you can't just suddenly change away from it by abolishing the system and printing a bunch of new money to replace it:  98% of people don't even understand what fractional reserve banking is, so they won't understand why someone's trying to "ban all banks", especially since the banks will start running huge advertising campaigns to further confuse the whole issue.

It hasn't really crashed. It's just slowly sliding back to the correct market price after a hype-driven speculative bubble.

I think we're still considerably above the fundamental price, which I base on utility.  I believe the correct price is in cents, not dollars, and it will remain there until the utility increases - which means getting more merchants online and more real commerce happening in BTC.  I encourage you to help with that, but it's a long-term strategy.

The other option is to generate more hype to try to get more people to start speculating again (in other words, finding new people to sucker in like you were).  I think that's unethical and detrimental to the ultimate utility of BC.  Even if you're an unscrupulous bastard and just want to leave someone else holding the bag, I don't think it will work - it's a short-term strategy, and it's already been used up.

Everybody makes some dumb moves.  I did people wrong when I was your age too.  Never fraud, but still things that can't ever be made entirely right.  I never got caught, but I realized I was going down the wrong path, undid what I could, and got back on the high road.

I hope you're sincere and I wish you well.  You've earned some hate, but don't let it deter you.  Consider it a bargain price for a valuable lesson: Do what's right and you won't regret it.

I run my own so I just have it whitelisted for now.  In my case it wasn't outright rejecting, but this was a very popular anti-spam measure before scoring techniques became popular, and it's still pretty common since it's easy and effective.

Thanks for looking into it!

No problem, it's good to hear from someone who's trying to do some real commerce in BTC.  I'm always glad to help.

I crossposted this to Meta: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43520

Ever since the forums were restored after the hack, email from the server has been using 'daemon@bitcointalk.xta.net' for the envelope sender.  bitcointalk.xta.net doesn't exist, so mail is getting rejected, probably for a lot of people who want to do password resets, new registration, etc.  Before the hack the sender was 'www-data@bitcointalk.org'.

Here's someone else having trouble:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43515.0