That's quite an exaggeration. They prevent their currency from appreciating by printing more of it, this makes Chinese goods cheaper to foreigners and subsidizes exports. However, it simultaneously limits imports and stifles growth in other ways. If "fixing a currency" was all it took to become an industrial super power, we'd see lots more industrial super powers.



They're not "starting" to see it - they are the ones causing it and it's not a new phenomenon. As mentioned above, the way they keep their currency debased is by inflating it, so of course there is inflation

The moment they stop fixing the RMB, it'll appreciate, the average Chinese person will suddenly have vastly higher purchasing power, and their economy will change/evolve to cater to the new dynamics. Their industrial base may strengthen after such an incident, as domestic demand may outpace the fall in foreign demand. Too many factors to make conclusive statements like that. Economies are dynamic creatures.

I did it before even seeing your post lol   PDF on my desktop.

It is completely decentralized. You're free not to use Gox at all. Contrast this with a centralized money, like the USD, and you are not free to abandon the Federal Reserve. Big difference.

Lesson: don't store tons of coins at gox. Problem solved! If Gox was "taken over", a new mega exchange would spring up quickly. The need to exchange coins doesn't go away. Gox has no forced monopoly. Markets adjust.


Who's putting all their eggs in the Gox basket? Maybe you're the only one?


Don't be a douche. In which currency do you dwell? And how much of a delusion are you under, I wonder?

How much money, time, and effort have you spent setting the international legal precedents for how Bitcoin will be perceived by the globe? The legal work they are doing, and the legal attacks they'll inevitably encounter and deal with, are huge benefits to the rest of us. What they are pioneering is how Bitcoin integrates with establish payment networks and laws around the world. If Bitcoin succeeds in making that integration, then it's subsequent success is highly likely.

Besides, Gox is the first mega-successful Bitcoin exchange in the history of the universe. How much more pioneering can one be?  

No, it doesn't. It looks more and more like the knight who can slay the dragon after all.

Again, there is all the difference in the world between "forced, coercive centralization" and "voluntary, market-based centralization." There should probably be different terms for each, because it leads to terrible confusion. So long as Bitcoin isn't heading toward the former, it is nothing like the dragon we're trying to slay.

+1

There is strength in having many exchanges, sure. But, Bitcoin is still small, and there is also strength in one exchange being relatively strong and powerful. Gox is pioneering many things, lots behind the scenes in the legal realm, which they could not do if they were small.

Naturally, more exchanges will spring up as aggregate trading of Bitcoin increases. As of now, the market isn't deep enough to permit half a dozen massive exchanges - the spreads would be too wide, the volume too low.

And again, market-based (voluntary) centralization shouldn't get anyone upset. Strategically, it'd be nice to have more, but any of you who are concerned with Gox's market share is very free to use other exchanges, or make your own.

How funny would that be if he took all these infinite steps to remain anonymous, and nobody could figure out who it was, and he forgot about the WHOIS details on bitcoin.com...

Long term, all wallets will have an average amount of tainted coins in them, and it will mean that "tainted" is a meaningless term.

Exchanges are private property - so if they want to act as policeman of the funds that go in or out of them, that's their right to do so. This is probably something best handled on a case by case basis. If a coin goes direct from a thief to Gox, maybe they should look into it. If a coin has passed through multiple parties without a high burden of proof that all of those parties were complicit in the crime, then it's almost certainly best to let coins be coins.

The fact is that Bitcoins move around the world even more easily than cash. All 21 million will be tainted some day - just as every road has had a murderer drive on it, every restaurant has served a rapist his dinner, and ever dollar bill has seen it's share of blow

Good luck with this Jered! That was a terrible cost for you guys to endure just as you started up business.

Instawallet has always been my favorite ewallet. I love the simplicity, speed, and lack of login required. It's simple, elegant, and a great way to introduce Bitcoin to new people.

Very glad to hear it's got a new home.

Can we get a confirmation that all the URLs and addresses are still valid/carry over? We don't need to create new accounts right?

Neither of those are required. The first is already solved by many of us, using green addresses and assuming very tiny amounts of risk. You do not need to wait for a confirmation to give your customer his hamburger - as soon as the transaction is seen, it's extremely unlikely that you'll get ripped off for $6.50. Much more likely that you'll die in a car accident driving home from work.

The second is probably a good evolution, but is not required. Not everyone needs to have the full blockchain to use the Bitcoin network. Many solutions to this already exist (ie - every ewallet, and thin clients).

What DOES need to occur before any "nation" would ever consider adopting something as experimental as Bitcoin is for the exchange rate to calm down considerably. The Bitcoin network has proven beautiful and resilient, but the market price will be chaotic for a long time while humanity tries to price this crazy thing. Until the price is very stable, it doesn't make sense to place what should be conservative money into Bitcoin (I'll also speculate that the price will not be relatively stable until Bitcoin is at least a few hundred dollars, if not a few thousand - the market will be too shallow until then).

Bitcoin does not require, nor does it lend itself well, to state sponsorship. What we need are individuals, wherever they are, to discover how Bitcoin works and realize why they should opt out of fiat incrementally.

Hmmmm... so the theory is that the government will curb hyperinflation by introducing a currency which forces people to spend money even faster?

Sounds stupid enough that the government just might try it!

Well yes, I hope everyone actually filled the survey out properly. Otherwise, you're doing more harm than good.

Gah, no it doesn't.  You are confusing coercive centralization with market-based centralization. Bitcoin moves us away from the former, but there is nothing wrong with moving toward the latter, because it is market-based (voluntary).

Further, the fact that most people won't use home clients with full blockchains is absolutely fine. We don't need every grandmother to be wired into the full distributed network. So long as the number of "full nodes" doesn't drop into the hundreds or double digits, then Bitcoin remains very much decentralized. Even if the only full nodes were 500 global companies with the massive blockchain sitting on their servers around the earth, that'd still be just fine. It's still decentralized according to any meaningful sense of the term.

We need not fear natural, market-based evolutions of how Bitcoin is operated, and such evolutions will occur necessarily toward efficiency. 

This calculation has been done many times, and is kinda silly for a number of reasons.

First, when people use the term, "size of the economy" what they're referring to is GDP, which is a measure of how much money was spent that year. GDP itself is a frightfully terrible way to measure economies, but we use it because governments like to show that when they spend money, the economy grows. Any "valuation" of Bitcoin derived from any GDP figures is already going to be pretty useless.

Second, the GDP figure measures spending, but most monetary units spent during the year are spent numerous times. If GDP is $1 trillion, and each dollar is used ten times, then "valuing" the dollars would more appropriately be $1 billion/number of dollars in existence. Your equation completely ignores this, and it's extremely relevant. I believe the proper term here is "monetary velocity." There are also issues of fractional reserve, credit expansion, and derivative instruments which change the supply of money far beyond its actual supply, and much of this would still occur under a Bitcoin-based monetary system.

Third, none of the above to criticisms even matter, because the main problem with this equation is that the value of something cannot be determined solely by seeing how much it is used. The value of any item, whether it's cows, cars, dollars, or bitcoins, derives from numerous factors which are typically distilled down to the phrase "supply and demand." How widely something is used influences this, but it's only a part of the valuation and not even the majority.

In other words, it's fun to make that calculation, and attach a figure of dollars to what a Bitcoin "would be worth if everyone used it." But it's a completely fallacious figure, and if indeed everyone used Bitcoins only, I promise the price would be far higher, or far lower, than your estimate, which makes it not a very good estimate at all

Share reserved! Let's do this.

Bingo. A bitcoin-based economy moves resources more efficiently, meaning less is lost and more is produced. Thus, humanity itself is wealthier, and if one could do a proper accounting of this phenomenon I'd imagine that wealth gain would be quite extensive.  Compare it to letters and email... society gained massive wealth by utilizing email instead of paper letters.

Fellowtraveler - your post regarding gold and bitcoin was one of the best I've seen. Really well stated, and absolutely correct.

Gold and Bitcoin are both valuable due to their specific attributes, some of which are in common and some of which are unique between themselves. Far from being mutually exclusive, they are beautifully complimentary, and anyone who understands the reasons gold is "real" money ought to understand (with a bit of explanation) why Bitcoin is also real money, and vice versa.

Well, of course you can purchase the parts if you sell the bitcoins for USD and buy them like that. You could acquire a Ferrari in the same manner

To make the project interesting, you'll need to buy the parts directly with BTC.

I'm sure you saw The Armory thread, about the new weapons site on Tor? A few quick PMs there and I'm sure you'd have what you're looking for, payable solely in BTC.

There are a number of people who make very good livings playing Starcraft professionally. Sponsors, girls, limos, blow, they have it all.

There's also an entire industry of "gold farmers" in Asia who just kill things in MMO games and sell the gold (it's against the games' TOS, but it's a huge industry regardless).