Ah yes, thank you for this link.

But I guess you also have to rely on the asset issuers themselves honouring the contracts made on any individual stock exchanges - ultimately they could just neglect to pay a dividend for 1 month. How would you enforce that? And without any formal contracts or if a stock exchange went down, how would you trade out of the stock at a future date?

So anybody who wants to invest in long-term BTC assets has to deal with these 3rd parties.

From doing some research it seems like the operator of MPEx is not exactly the most upstanding character (please excuse me if I missed something there or am wrong about this).

Just wanted to get your opinion on anybody who has trusted these exchanges in the past & purchased assets through them (it seems at least some people have), and why. Especially given what happened with GLBSE. How can investors be sure that's not going to happen again? (in particular, GLBSE was unable to comply with AML & legal regulations. Surely the same is going to occur in due course with MPEx). What's the risk?

The dividend yield on SDICE may be 40% but tbh the real issue seems to be whether an investor's capital will still be preserved after a full year of investment (my intuition from looking at posts on these forums combined with the controversial legal position occupied by bitcoin is 'no').

Is this a serious proposition?

Although I understand there are 'pass through' funds that allow investment without going through MPEx directly, it seems the whole ecosystem depends on MPEx - if that fails it would still lead to a wipeout.

1 - cost/benefit

Is there consumer demand for the technology. Is it going to be worth the cost of installation / set up vs. the benefit the business will receive.

Ie. if <1% of consumers will utilise the technology, probably its not going to be worth the business investing in supporting it

2 - legality

No retailer or established business in a western jurisdiction will accept this as a mainstream payment option until a legal precedent is set by an established name, so that they know it is legal

Business is not going to risk its reputation by harbouring a technology that may be illegal


These are two barriers bitcoin has to overcome to obtain mainstream adoption

Thanks but actually I've been registered here since 2011, just didnt post much

 

Hi guys

Just wanted to see why the price is justified with Bitcoin? Because its a very high price right now, $27.00

Bitcoin at the end of the day has no intrinsic value. Its not a tangible thing like gold. Its just some bits in a computer. If one day everyone decided that it was a total waste of time and had no value, the value of it would go to $0 and everyone who bought the coins would loose their money.

I need someone who can offer Brazilian REAL for BTC

Need to deposit BRL into a Brazilian bank account

OR

Deliver BRL in Brazil; either in SP or in Florianopolis, SC

Please PM if you can do this.

Just to add my voice to the growing list of appreciation for this conference

Thanks most of all to Mitch for organising everything. The organisation was very good, and the whole show was very professionally run. It must've taken alot of effort to bring everything together for that final day and I'm sure everyone attending appreciated it. It is good that Europe is holding its own against the rest of the world in supporting Bitcoin. Congrats to Amir as well for hosting.

It was the content and the speakers that really made this talk so good. I'd like to pass on thanks to all of the speakers for their talks, all of which were very well delivered and insightful. I and I'm sure everyone else present enjoyed everything that was said, and the effort that was put into creating every presentation.

Highlights for me were the less technical talks, as I'm not too heavily involved in the development side at the moment: David Birch, Rick Falkvinge, Detlev Schlichter.

One thing which I thought very special about the conference was the mix of older and younger speakers - older and wiser talks from the likes of David Birch, Max Keiser, Rick Falkvinge, Clemens Cap along with those actually creating the new technologies like Cameron Garnham, Amir Taaki, Stefan Thomas, Peter Kleissner, etc.

I really hope that we can continue to hold the interest of all these very knowledgeable and clever people.

I think important to listen to the more experienced speakers. Whilst its exciting to hear about the new technologies and ideas from the likes of Amir and Stefan, it is fundamental to listen to those who understand how the 'real world' works.

Also interesting to hear from Detlev Schlichter, Max Keiser and Rick Falkvinge, particularly good to have them along given what's going on in the economy. I thought they added a very interesting additional dimension to the conference that would have otherwise been missing. Congrats again to Mitch/Amir for working hard to get these people along.

All in all, I thought it was a very thoughtful and insightful event. My only thoughts are that the venue itself was a little far out from the rest of Prague and in particular the Hacker Space where a lot of people went afterwards. It was excellently positioned vis a vis the hotel however. Prague was a great location for it aswell.

Well done guys for organising everything. Once again , an amazing conference with some great talks. Hopefully the next one can be bigger and better

Xavier

Bloodshed will indeed ensure.

Why am I posting this instead of just trading on it I dont know.

Government will move in on Bitcoin in 12-18months from now

Until then the price of BTC will go up as more services are developed for it and use increases, due to its natural competitive advantage over PayPal and other online money services

The bloodshed will then start.

First, MtGox will be shut down; their bank account will be frozen and their business & owner in Japan seized

All other bank accounts involved in exchanging Bitcoins will be frozen & similar fates will occur to their proprieters

At that point demand for BTC will be reduced because of reduced liquidity

BTC will go way down in price

BTC will still have value from here on and be used but only for black market goods, it will not reach mainstream appeal as long as governments oppose it

Any new exchanges will be moved on and have their bank accounts frozen

People will still mine BTC a long time from now but it will not reach mainstream appeal.

Until governments move in however the price will go up, so all buy in on the MT Gox and enjoy the party! Just no real prediction when its going to end, but governments usually move slowly. Expect alot more press about Bitcoin and publicity in the mean time which will also serve to drive up the price

Ok guys, after a day where the price of bitcoin has gone from 30 - 20, am I the only person who is thinking that this currency is so damn volatile!

Would it be useful for businesses working in bitcoins to be able to hedge against big currency movements? Maybe someone should organise some bitcoin forex derivatives?

What happened to Britcoin? Is the exchange still online? Or did it get taken down?

http://www.britcoin.co.uk

What worries me about bitcoin is the number of people who are so emotionally involved in this.

If someone comes along and makes a good critique of bitcoin, the last way to respond is to just insult him or call him names.  I know people have invested in Bitcoin and so they probably do feel pretty passionate about it but for the sake of the community we do need to try and stop all this insulting/name calling.

Yes I believe Bitcoin is vulnerable to DOS attacks. So is Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or any big website. But it seems (and I have to admit at this point although I am a computer science grad, I have not read and understood all of Satoshi's paper or the Bitcoin source code) from what I understand that whether a DOS attack will suceed or not depends on the size of the Bitcoin network.

At the moment, as sourced from the fatwallet.com post, it apparently would cost about $700k to build a network the size of the current bitcoin mining network. (I assume this value is true, but the actual post does not contain any mathematics or data to back up that claim).

How likely is it that an attacker will have access to a network that big and be smart & motivated enough to use it to attack Bitcoin. And how long would it take an attacker to do that? Because the longer it takes him to do that, the more difficult it becomes to outcompete the Bitcoin network, due to the fact that more mining nodes are being added every day.

As time increases, more people use Bitcoin, the value of Bitcoins increase and so the financial incentive for mining increases, so the number of miners increase. As the number of miners increase, this leads to a network that is more secure from DOS attacks.

Thus whilst there is a theoretical security risk embedded in Bitcoin, practically it seems to be a different question as to whether the network would actually be compromised. I do not know the size of the current network or how easy/difficult it would be for an attacker at the current stage, but as every day passes the network becomes more difficult for a DOS attacker to compromise. Because I do not know the size of the network it is difficult to pass judgement on how easy/difficult it would be for an attacker to compromise it at present. If anybody has that data, then it would be useful to share it.

Btw, in response to some earlier post that said "who has access to a $700k network", the answer is someone who has access to a botnet, the kinds of people who are able to perform high profile DOS attacks on websites. (like paradoxically the guys who took down MtGox the other day). Whether they are able to take down the much larger Bitcoin network is a different question.

Thank you all for the replies to my post. I am rather new here, so I probably have mis understood some things. I come from a background in finance, and so am probably lacking some of the technical knowledge of Bitcoin. But I have read a bit on the idea, and find it very interesting. I hope that I may be able to bring some perspective from that industry to the community.

OK - let me respond to your posts!


My thinking is that it will be in the collective interest of all banks not to support Bitcoin. Even if some perhaps smaller banks would gain more from FX, the big players will act politically to seal them off from the global banking system if they make serious moves to adopt Bitcoins as part of their business models.


Governments are very strict on regulation of the financial services industry. My thoughts are that they would have a problem with a retailer accepting bank deposits. Some key unanswered questions: Why would Walmart accept Bitcoins if none of their consumers use them? And why would consumers use them if they don't have a bank which they can use to obtain them? And how is Walmart going to convert the BTCs they receive into hard currency without mainstream banks?



I am sure anything is possible. We only have to see what has happened in the last few years with the credit crunch, Lehman etc.
However, my thinking is that there has to be a logical route for it to happen.


This would rely on widespread adoption of Bitcoin



I am not saying that you will not be able to meet a local dealer and exchange. But for widespread adoption, you need a mainstream dealer.



Bitcoin has some real advantages over existing currencies. I seems in essence to be a better business model for a currency. But there are many 'better business models' that never became reality because of politics.


Yes I can't help thinking this is true as well. Governments rely on control of the banking system for their income, which allows them to exercise control over society. Whilst governments would probably be able to tax in Bitcoin, I think that the negatives for government combined with pressure from the banking system would over-ride any positive arguements for Bitcoin's adoption.

Please let me know your thoughts on the above. It is probable that I am being too negative. I await your comments!

This ignores the simple fact that the parties that bitcoin relies upon to succeed have the most to loose from bitcoin's success.

I'm not saying bitcoin isn't going to be more successful than it is.

But for businesses (online and offline) to take it seriously, it needs to be supported by mainstream banks not just by backroom dealers. And I can't really see that happening any time soon.

Am I just being too negative?

Because every electronic transaction that occurs in Bitcoins means less revenue for them, as they are not in the middle.

They might indeed gain from more FX conversions, and I guess they could charge fees for that, but I bet they stand to loose more from lets say "intermediatary fees" than they would gain from additional forex transactions.

Isn't that the whole point of bitcoin? That it frees users from the high fees embedded in the banking system?

Btw don't Bitcoins securely handle themselves? So there is no need for 3rd party security? Or are you saying that banks might offer to protect users' wallets for them?

Hi Guys

I have been doing a bit of thinking today and talking with a friend and wanted to express my view on Bitcoin, and ultimately get some feedback from you guys on it.

For this thing to really get popular, everyday users who know nothing about bitcoin and don't care about it either need to find it is cheaper for them to transact in bitcoins rather than normal currency.

That means that the benefit of bitcoin, ie. not having to go through 3rd parties, needs to be realised.

The reason why I think bitcoin has got potential to really do well is that businesses pay so much money to 3rd parties for transacting. Think about it: Every time a business accepts cards, it pays anywhere from 3-8% of the transaction value to the credit card company.

Businesses would kill to be able to avoid that.

However, here's the commercial problem with bitcoin.

(aside from the fact that governments probably won't like it for tax reasons).

Bitcoin is ultimately competing against some of the biggest and most interconnected institutions in the world: banks & credit card companies. Most of these companies are very closely connected.

Bitcoin unfortunately to work depends on banks. Why? Because users need to be able to convert their USDs/GBPs/EURs into bitcoin and then their bitcoins into USD/GBP/EUR. This can only happen if a bank is involved somewhere, either directly (through a bank transfer) or indirectly (through paypal/online payment processing).

Banks will not be happy about Bitcoin, due to the fact it competes with them.

Therefore they will not allow their customers to convert into Bitcoin. They will block the accounts of the biggest individuals or companies that are exchanging BTC to mainstream currencies. And yes there are a lot of different banks out there, but all the worlds banks are closely connected and I am sure they will ALL be in agreement that bitcoin is not in their collective best interests.

Not saying that Bitcoin will be extinguished: they will always be individuals who will convert BTC into currency via exchanges like MtGox. But there will never be one big company or institution that supports bitcoin conversion, and without that the currency cannot enter the mainstream. (ie. be used everyday for consumers, online or offline).

Bitcoin will always be useful for some things I believe, and it will still have value. But it is not going to change the world for this reason.

(BTW this ignores the fact that banks have huge political influence and will support any political attempts to block the advance of bitcoin.)

What do you guys think?

Rofl.

IMO, its not like theres a shortage of energy, just in certain countries.

For example, Iceland is brimming with energy, has loads of hot springs and stuff, and way too much electricity. Similarly Iran (apparently) because of all the oil they burn. Yet California can't get enough.

I think the problem is not a lack of energy but distribution of it.

So to that point, I guess Bitcoin miners should be concentrated in places with an abundance of energy. And I suppose the free market forces will make sure that this happens.

BTW, as a side note I think that the solution to the 'energy crisis' is better infrastructure, so that we can have say a country like Iceland exporting its energy to say the US.

That energy can then be used in different forms, eg. Hydrogen for cars, Electricity for houses, etc. etc.

Thus replacing oil and solving the world's energy crisis. Simple, lol

BitCon - Lol

I think something should be organised for London / Europe..

Really? So not all bitcoins have identical value? Am I the only person who read this and thought it a little strange..

Thanks for the replies guys. I did some more reading on this yesterday. Obviously this scenario is quite unknown, as it will only happen if there is a wide adoption of the currency and if this takes off.

However, my thoughts are that if there are enough people transacting in this currency then it will be in someone's interest to keep the system (ie. required # of nodes) running. And hopefully that person will be able to fund maintenance of the network.

However this is an unknown. Sure the fee system could work but I'm not convinced about that and still a little confused having read over some past forum posts.

Plus isn't there an issue once the network shrinks to a certain size that makes it vulnerable to security attacks?

How secure is this? This is a brand new technology and there are bound to be issues that will not arise until it reaches a certain level of prevalence. There are also bound to be issues with the source code and the technology behind BTC. I hope that I am just being cynical here and that even if any issues exist they will not pose a threat to this technology. However, with open source software, more eyeballs doesn't always mean software is more secure.

Hey guys

MB this has been approached already, but I couldn't find it on the forums.

What happens when we reach maximum allocation of BitCoins?

Currently there are about 6m coins in circulation. I believe the maximum is 21m. I don't know the rate of creation, but I read somewhere than theoretically in 50 years time all the coins that can ever be created will be in circulation.

Question is: What then

At the moment, the nodes supporting the network are incentivised because they get paid a certain amount of coins per transaction, which they are allowed to create.

However when #BTC = 21m, nodes will not be allowed to create any more BTC.

So what incentives are there at that point for nodes to continue supporting the system?