You can short BTC at Bitfinex: https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/features. Other exchanges, maybe!

OK, but... this graph extends to September, and I'm still not seeing the resistance being tested after the initial (post-dip) test: http://futures.tradingcharts.com/historical/DJ/2006/9/linewchart.html. (My interest in this is that I've always assumed diagonal support lines were "special cases" and assumptions are always worth reassessing - so an example showing that diagonals behave like horizontals would be a good start for my reassessment).

Me too, I guess There's one example of a diagonal, and the only repeated tests are on the support side - resistance is only tested once. What am I missing?

Use multiple clients! If you need to buy something with BTC online, put just enough BTC into an online wallet. Keep BTC you're likely to need in the next few months on Bitcoin-QT, Multibit, etc. (And keep the rest safe and secure in a paper wallet.)

Sorry, ATH is "all time high".

I don't know what caused the December 2013 drop - beyond the obvious "supply outstripping demand". All I know is that similar drops have happened before, without MtGox being (much of) a factor, and I'd expect similar drops (and the preceeding rises) to occur again.

Since MtGox's collapse there's been a steady decline, but nothing like the USD1200 to USD400 drop - and this has probably been driven more by concerns about regulation of Chinese exchanges.

Compared to the drop from the ATH to under USD400 in December 2013 the February-March 2014 period does look fairly stable. Around USD600 just prior to MtGox folding, and around USD450 now. A drop, admittedly, but proportionately smaller than the December drop (and other, similar drops from previous ATHs).

Satoshi went public with Bitcoin in 2009... I've been registered on bitcointalk since 2011. Not sure where you got the idea it was not yet 1 year old...

Back to the OP's question, this is Bitstamp's price chart for "all data" from Bitcoincharts - you can see than in April 2013 price went from over USD200 to under USD100 - and going further back similar falls occur with surprising regularity.

Edit: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#tgSza1gWMAzm1g20za2gWMAzm2g1920zl (Oops!)

I'm not saying MtGox et al didn't play their part, just that we tend to overemphasise the role of news. MtGox, for example, didn't come as the big surprise many people think it did - people had been expecting MtGox to screw up for some time, and that would have been reflected in the price long before February 2014.

It's not the question, it's the assertion: "Eventually people might stop doing this once the mining reward becomes too small or once mining is over 100+ years from now." As others have pointed out above, transaction fees exist. This is pretty fundamental: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#After_21_million_coins_are_mined.2C_no_one_will_generate_new_blocks

Bitcoin's unit is already the µBTC. µBTC and mBTC are both subdivisions of BTC. They are available as options in the Bitcoin-QT client.

Changing to µBTC simply requires you to decide to make the change.

No personal experience with bitfinxex, but its parent company is iFinex (http://ifinex.net/), they have offices in London, Milan, New York and Hong Kong - not sure which one is the head office, or if their offices are "physical" or "virtual".

It'd complicate comparing the two polls, though. Though I do agree - when the first poll was resurrected I thought the same (but by then it was far too late to change it, obviously).

It's the day teh intarwebs have decided China is "banning Bitcoin". Things will probably be bearish until teh intarwebs discover that Chinese investors know about Hong Kong (and other offshore locations) and that CNH is a thing as well as CNY. Then we'll wait for the next round of confusion.

Ahem! That was three months ago - just after the all-time high in December

Look, if you and your friends are more comfortable thinking in terms of mBTC - do it. Do it now. You don't need permission from a central authority to do it.

If this is a problem then it's a social problem.

But Bitcoin is vast. At one end there are 2100000000000000 "Satoshis". At the other end there are 21 MBTC. Neither end is more valid than the other; the rich guy buying an island for 1MBTC is no less important or relevant than the new convert who's trawling faucets, 20 Satoshis at a time. What your proposal - and similar proposals - implicitly suggest is: "there is a 'typical' Bitcoin user operating in the 0.1 BTC to 0.01 µBTC range, and these users are so important that we should impose a change that we hope will benefit them - but to the potential detriment of all other users".

Let us decide what nicknames we're going to use. Let us use real-world words like "micro" and "milli" if that's what we want. Let us call 0.01 µBTC a "Satoshi" if we want. Let us reappropriate existing local words (1.05 BTC is "a guinea". Just because.) But don't assume that your system is ideal for everyone, and please don't try and seek to impose it on the rest of us.

Probably. But the point is that Bitcoin itself is safe, no one lost BTC that they personally held. People lost BTC they held at MtGox - i.e. BTC that MtGox had full control over. And that's the point - I don't need to keep my BTC at an exchange, I can keep it quite safe myself. I suppose I could keep control of my cash, as well - but it'd occupy far too much space, and would be expensive to secure.

For my purposes Bitcoin is far safer - I keep possession and control of my BTC, and when I need to trade or make a purchase I can make an informed decision about counterparty risk (which is why I prefer OTC, and always use escrow).

Edit: Where did it spike above $1000? On Bitstamp it's been around $700 or lower since the start of February - http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg60ztgSza1gWMAzm1g20za2gWMAzm2g1920zl

I prefer OTC trades as well. I've not tried bitcoinlivechat, but localbitcoins has worked well.

I'm surprised you think banks are safer than Bitcoin - what I love above Bitcoin is it takes away the need for counterparty risk (except when I choose to trade or make a purchase). But given the recent history of the banking industry there's way too much risk for me to trust banks any more than I have to. Having said that, I keep my BTC firmly under my control, and nowhere near exchanges except for (very brief) periods when I'm trading.

When I think of markets being rigged 16 year old and North Korean traders aren't my biggest worry. Though I guess if the trader was a 16 year old member of the Politburo I'd worry more...

I'm not even 100% certain that I regard HFT as "unfair". At least with Bitcoin we have a chance to develop our own bots and the APIs are all open (and free, as far as I know).

But my biggest worry is "who will decide what is fair". It's regulation, and I'm instinctively opposed.

Just $200? It's dropping to *OMG $5!!!!1!elevntyone!* soon:


PS. There's a lot of impatient punters over on that other thread, waiting for you to make good on your $5/BTC offer.

If you're selling, I'd be happy to pay $5. If you're not, then your post seems a little light on anything other than hype.

If a miner can't afford to mine, they stop mining. If a miner stops mining, the network hash rate decreases. If the hash rate decreases the difficulty goes down. If the difficulty goes down mining becomes more profitable. If mining becomes more profitable, new miners start mining.

(This is a generalisation - obviously what might happen is that an inefficient miner stops mining, and a more efficient miner takes their place. But hopefully you now understand that this is not a problem, and certainly not an unconsidered or new problem).