What are your theories then ... ??!?
If you guys thought Bitcoinica is\was good for BTC, then you are the tards!
First of all, just because the price rises some time after Bitcoinica goes offline doesn't = causation. Second, the price didn't move up for a couple weeks after Bitcoinica went down. Third, Bitcoinica allows speculation in two directions: up and down. Even though you can't short BTC now that it's gone, you also cannot go long at 5:1 margin. MANY people used Bitcoinica to buy heavily on margin, and they can no longer do so. There is no reason to think the net effect of Bitcoinica is "up" or "down"... it probably changes day by day based on the specific balances of the individuals currently placing their bets. The reason Bitcoin's price is rising is because it's the most revolutionary monetary technology ever invented. One should expect it to rise in price, and not much explanation is needed beyond that. People are realizing how healthy and resilient Bitcoin actually is, and so they buy some. Bitcoinica would only ever be a minor influence at any given time, and could be either positive or negative on the price. |
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And the bar raises yet another notch... nicely done! Now (again) if I could go to the store with BTC and come out with cash...  That's only a couple months away  Aww damn, I was hoping it would be sooner. Oh well. Erik just says 'months' so we look good when we launch it in 'weeks'  "Under-promise and over-deliver"... but now you've ruined that, haven't you Charlie  |
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OP - really glad to see this new mixing service! The more the better. I hope you guys realize you can make al ot of money if you stick around and operate honestly. If you steal the coins and the service goes down, you get a short-term payout but lose a huge money making asset and it would be the height of foolishness. So, please stay honest and you will be rewarded with time. Also, I wonder if anyone is using SatoshiDice to clean coins? The coins sent in are not the same as those sent back, and with a house edge of 1.5% one could consider that a "mixing" fee |
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And the bar raises yet another notch... nicely done! Now (again) if I could go to the store with BTC and come out with cash... That's only a couple months away |
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I highly recommend everyone try this out once, with just $20, to see how awesome and easy it is. I think many people have not come to realize how easy obtaining Bitcoins is getting.
When cash deposits came out, you no longer needed to wire money.
When Coinapult came out, you no longer needed to use an exchange.
And now with mobile integration, you no longer need even a computer!
Go try it, it'll help you explain how easy it is to others when they ask how to buy bitcoins.
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[rant warning] Well, everywhere you see bitcoin promoted or advertised, they'll give you the selling points - rapid transactions (hours instead of days), pseudonymous, secure, inflation-proof, and, not least, near-zero transaction fees. This last, the near-zero fees, might be true of the protocol, but it is absolutely not true for all the services that have sprung up. There are, to my knowledge, very few services that offer less than 0.5% fee, most would be around 2-3% - roughly a credit card transaction fee. What got me started on this was TorWallet's announcement of a mixing service https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87387.0. Now, that seems like a wonderful service, but it charges 3% for mixing your coins, while a similar competing service, BitcoinFog, charges 2%. Let's think about that. BitcoinFog says he gets "thousands of bitcoins per day" moving through his service (see above thread, msg 17). 2% of thousands is, let's say, 50 bitcoins per day or about $300 per day, or $9000 per month. Now that is way more than anything you might need to run the server. A low-cost server might be $10 per month, a high-end might be, what, $50 per month? So, assuming a high-end server (BTC 0.2 per day) handling 3000 bitcoins per day and an admin costing BTC 4 per day on average, a reasonable fee might be 0.2/3000 ~ 0.005% for server costs, 4/3000 ~ 0.1% for admin. Now you might well say, STFU, go do your own. Well, I would. But let me tell you another story. Where I live, the govt built a nice new bridge over the river. It cost a lot of money, so there was a toll to go over it. Now, 30 years or so later, the bridge has gathered enough tolls to be fully paid off many many times over, but the toll keeps getting more and more expensive. I realise that there are maintenance costs, but they'd be far less than the tolls. Same with bitcoin services - the devs have to be paid for the initial investment. But if that were all, then you'd expect the fee for a service to reduce over time, and to reduce as more people use the service. That hasn't happened with any bitcoin service that I'm aware of yet, leading me to think that service ops just want to milk the pundits as much as possible. So - is it possible to use bitcoins with "near-zero" fees? I don't think so. [/rant] Okay Fergalish, we need to have a talk. You seem to be upset that people who provide you with services charge a fee and retain profit from that fee. Tell me, what is it you do for work? Are you charging your employer anything more than the cost of your food and shelter? If so, you are profiting from your employer in the same way these service providers (such as the Tor mixing service) are doing. Complaining about it is hypocritical. Profit is not bad, it is good. I want there to be more profit in Bitcoin... I hope tomorrow there are twice as many Bitcoin services earning profit. Now, if you're simply upset because bitcoin is promoted as "without fee" then you are misunderstanding how this works. Bitcoin itself, as a payment system peer-to-peer has no fee (or the very tiny voluntary fee). You can send money without fee right now, go give it a try. However, if you want MORE services than simple money transfer (like coin washing, for example), then you'll be asked by the provider to pay for it. Any value-added service above and beyond the core money transfer system of Bitcoin is going to require payment (costs + profit). If you find a service provider's fee to be too high, then don't use them. Simple simple! |
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Charlie mispronounced "Keynesianism" but other than that he did great |
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1) Do you have proof that it actually sends bitcoins, on it's own, without being hooked up to -any- other devices, wires or batteries, after walking for 10 minutes into the forest, in a dimly lit area where trees shade the device, and your friend 5 feet away holds the same type of device?
Yes I saw it do this with my own eyes. Though the screen on these prototypes is not backlit so if you were in darkness you couldn't see the screen. 2) How many transmissions can you make before the battery runs out and does it require a full recharging if you actually use it all day? Probably thousands of transmissions, and you never "recharge" it. It maintains power through normal use. As mentioned, it cannot be plugged into anything. There are physically no ports on the device. None of this makes sense until you realize the device uses almost zero electricity to operate. Think of a digital watch which runs for many months on a tiny battery, with technology that is many years old. |
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Please also add Bitcoin vs Euro (June 10th '11 — June 10th '12). Thank you.
The data I used was year to year and year to date, and that's typically how assets are shown historically. If you'd like to cherry pick data to show Bitcoin falling from a summer price bubble, please feel free to post it yourself. And if you're going to do that, please also post the stats from Jan 1 2011, to June 10, 2011.  |
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Great point. In that one day it jumped all the way up |
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1) Do you have proof that it actually sends bitcoins, on it's own, without being hooked up to -any- other devices, wires or batteries, after walking for 10 minutes into the forest, in a dimly lit area where trees shade the device, and your friend 5 feet away holds the same type of device?
Yes I saw it do this with my own eyes. Though the screen on these prototypes is not backlit so if you were in darkness you couldn't see the screen. |
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Anyone in the electronics industry can tell you that the e-ink screen, radio transmitter/receiver and other functions of the device cannot be run by such a small solar panel, in fact, it would need a battery the size of the whole card just to run an hour more than likely. On this point Matthew you are incorrect 100%. The device IS ONLY SOLAR POWERED. It doesn't/can't plug into anything. Yet, has a screen and transmitter and provides all the functionality discussed. I asked them how long it could go without any sunlight and the answer was "several months". In fact it is so power-efficient that the retail version (production model) can enable it to power itself from occasional bending (bending the device back and forth to charge it) or even from pushing the buttons during normal usage. Power is not a problem with these. |
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Alot of the technical aspects we all had to sign a non-confidentiality however Erik (who is a MUCH better writer than I am has been preparing a blog post)
Is that the opposite of a non-disclosure agreement? LOL yes Matt you got Charlie there It was indeed a non-disclosure agreement that we signed. We are basically allowed to talk about functionality, appearance, pricing etc, but not about some of the technical specs of the internal components (many of which were developed in house by their team). Since I can't understand tech specs anyway (beyond my expertise) I wouldn't be able to divulge that info regardless |
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For the record...
--------
Bitcoin vs Euro in 2011
Bitcoin Jan 1, 2011: $0.30
Bitcoin Jan 1, 2012: $5.27
Bitcoin Up 1,756% for 2011
(note that Bitcoin was the best performing asset class in the world in 2011 even after it fell from its price peak in the summer)
Euro Jan 1, 2011: $1.34
Euro Jan 1, 2012: $1.29
Euro Down 4% for 2011
Bitcoin vs Euro so far in 2012
Bitcoin Jan 1, 2012: $5.26
Bitcoin June 11, 2012: $5.51
Bitcoin Up 4.75% for 2012
Euro Jan 1, 2012: $1.29
Euro June 11, 2012: $1.25
Euro Down 3.2% for 2012
---------
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What's Paypal? I heard it was something like Bitcoin but with chargebacks, currency debasement, account holds, and 3% fees? Is that true?
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And, equally importantly, the longer you postpone the house's win, the more the house wins. (Because with every wager you place, the house's expected profit goes up.)
I'm not sure I agree with this statement. I'm no statistical expert, but I believe what is being referred to here are called "independent events" in statistics, wherein each bet occurs independently of other bets. If you thus bet 9 times and win all 9 times, the 10th bet does not have any worse odds than the first, even though the house's odds have gotten out of whack. In other words, if you "postpone" the house's win, there's no additional reason to not place the next bet. There is no "karma" in gambling. Every marginal bet has the same chance of you winning. Thus with every wager you place, the house's expected profit does NOT go up, but is the same each time no matter what. Am I wrong or misunderstanding you Joel? |
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Yeah that bet yesterday killed me  Now I must subsist on ramen noodles for weeks. But the show must go on! Technical update - the hundreds of pending transactions which got stuck over the past 4 days have been cleared and processed. System is running smoothly again, if somewhat impoverished |
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Any onlooker who puts a real currency like Bitcoin in the same category as FarmVille cash has missed the point entirely. The fact that they're both "digital" is where the similarities end... and indeed both Bitcoin and FarmVille cash share the "digital" trait with USD and all other fiat. All money is digital these days - even "paper money" is just redeemable coupons for digital currency in your bank account. The only serious non-digital currency is gold/silver.
USD is actually more similar to FarmVille cash than BTC, because the former two are A) centrally controlled and B) can be created at whim - two crucial attributes, and far more important than that all three of these are digital.
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