Both MtGox and Andresen pointed out that bugs were inevitable in a young, experimental product. Bitcoin, however, is already more than that -- the system's market cap reached $14.4 billion at its December 2013 peak. I'm going to have to side with Mark and Gavin on this one: Bitcoin is indeed young and experimental. No part of the definitions of young or experimental preclude huge hype and billions of US dollars. For outsiders, however, it looks increasingly as though Bitcoin should be viewed as an experiment... Very good! You're learning. Let's review today's lesson; repeat after me: Bitcoin is an experiment. |
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We need to wake up and pay more attention to this.
Why? Given the much more substantial problems of scalability, dominating mining pools, and government regulation, why should we worry about such a non-issue? If a whale is able to profit from creating a flash-crash then I say good for them. This kind of crashes show how weak the whole ecosystem is. I agree with OP, what happened on BTC-E should be written in the damn history books of bitcoin. The market is unstable. And while I don't advocate for 'SELL AND RUN', I'd say that only the ones that have the guts to watch falling to 100s to HOLD. Other's should sell portions now and diversify. To clarify. I see this flash crash as a non-issue as far as Bitcoin is concerned (which is what I believe OP was considering). People that are worried by this spike certainly should be paying more attention and should reduce their holdings until they feel comfortable. It is a neat event for the history books, I'll give you that. |
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They were certainly very, very strange. In fact I don't think we've seen a move like this in the entire history of bitcoin.
It certainly was a large flash-crash, nearly 10-fold. I remember witnessing a near 1000-fold flash-crash on Gox (mid-2011, it turned out someone hacked the exchange). We need to wake up and pay more attention to this.
Why? Given the much more substantial problems of scalability, dominating mining pools, and government regulation, why should we worry about such a non-issue? If a whale is able to profit from creating a flash-crash then I say good for them. |
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I'm not a programmer, but consider a P2P cryptocurrency with an initial centralized online exchange that the P2P program runs. The program gives more Coins to miners when the price of the cryptocurrency is deemed too high and gives fewer coins to miners when the price is too low similarly to how a government might do so. Thus, the program is able to peg the currency value and maintain long term and short term price stability.
It's difficult to understand what you mean by "initial centralized online exchange that the P2P program runs". My best guess is that you'd like to consider an entity X that the P2P protocol recognises as special for a limited time. X would have the job of controlling the rate of issuance of the currency. Of course, at any time when the cryptocurrency is losing value against your reference currency, X would be helpless to maintain the peg (it could not reduce the supply), but we'll ignore this weakness, settling for the idea that some control is better than no control. What you have in effect is what's known as a 100% pre-mine. We begin an alt-coin where X has all of the coins and the network is sustained by transaction fees alone. X then gradually injects these coins into the economy, adjusting the rate in an attempt to limit the value of a unit of the alt-coin in terms of a reference currency. The closest example to this I'm aware of is Ripple. X in this case is a company called Ripple Labs (formerly OpenCoin). |
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(Originally posted in Alternate Cryptocurrencies forum)
I would love to see a P2P currency work, but I have serious doubts about current-day P2P currencies.
The most important thing any currency needs is (at the very least) day-to-day stability of value, and no P2P currency that I know about has that yet.
The best way to create day-to-day stability would be to peg the value of the currency to a big currency or a basket of currencies, which is what most developing and/or small countries do--at least until the currency is stable enough to be allowed to float.
I don't think it would be technically simple to create a P2P currency that works that way.
That being said, does anyone know of a P2P currency that pegs its value right now?
The mechanics of maintaining a currency peg call for control of the currency being pegged, control which is naturally absent in a true P2P currency. Your best bet is to look into faux P2P currencies, currencies that try to capture some of the value of decentralisation while making concessions for some specific purpose. NoFiatCoin, for example, operates in a P2P fasion (based in Ripple) but is backed by gold. |
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The pioneers of BTC didn't get in it for avg growth, which is why many of them are diversifying into other positions with greater profit potential .
Sure. Jeff's a big Primecoin miner, Gregory is still spitting feathers about the Maxcoin fiasco, and Gavin's all about the Doge. We have just entered uncharted waters but I think that the exchange market for Bitcoin just gained A LOT for the long term in the form of lower volatility. Evolution works fast in such a pure market and the predators FUD'ers might have played their role today.
+1 To all Bitcoin speculators: You will not be babied. HTFU or GTFO! |
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So sad that the currency is so young and the news is already terribly manipulated.
Yes, but isn't it joyful to see community members that understand the situation working hard to educate others? Bitcoin isn't broken, Mt.Gox just didn't understand txids and are blaming Bitcoin itself for their misunderstanding. This is no different to various novice tinkerers that lose bitcoins because they don't understand change addresses or first-bits and start blaming Bitcoin itself. |
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It's relatively safe. I certainly feel that my bitcoins would be more secure in a blockchain.info wallet than in an online wallet which held my bitcoins and for which there was some "legal guarantee".
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I guess about 3900 USD/BTC.
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So are we adopting this meme or fail?
Don't worry, It will faid. |
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Don't be afraid of studying a bit of basic economics no matter how much some fear mongerer wants you to think otherwise, the more you are educated the better you can spot people trying to push you in directions for their own benefit.
Good advice, although I would substitute "the more you are educated" with "the greater your understanding". |
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hard to use btc without a computer? You can try...  but more people in the country would have phones that could use m-pesa easily. m-pesa is already used by tens of millions of people in africa, the middle east and indian subcontinent as M-Paisa. This would be a more pragmatic solution for zimbabwe over bitcoin. I realise this is a bitcoin forum, but not all solutions are nails looking for the same hammer. If the people have simple feature phones then they can use the Kipochi Bitcoin wallet. This will allow them to send/receive bitcoins with one another and enable them to convert to/from M-PESA money (Ksh). Certainly, M-PESA already has a large network of users, and I think the money (Ksh) is pegged to the USD (1000 Ksh = 13 USD), giving it some stability. However, M-PESA also charges high fees (as far as I can gather, 3-6% for sending about 10 USD worth to another registered user). There are also some privacy problems (passports and national ID cards are involved). I agree that Bitcoin is not always the best solution, but here I feel it offers some promise and should not be dismissed out of hand. I actually wasn't dismissing bitcoin out of hand. otoh, your rolleyes was dismissing my point out of hand. this is a much more nuanced argument than you had before, and I learned about Kipochi bitcoin wallet from your second post, so thanks for this. My apologies. "Dismissed out of hand" was too strong. I was merely pleased to see a newbie using facts and logic and treating Bitcoin as a tool (rather than a religion) and wanted to engage you. Genuine thanks in the wake of perceived insult is exceptionally rare here. You're welcome; feel free to PM me if you have any cryptocurrency-related questions. Oh, and I never use the eye-roll emoticon. Your first comment was responded to by Wooden, not I. |
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The irony of Apple in the 21st century is surely that they produced OSX from open source software with liberal licensing, then went on to make the most restrictive platform with it.
Here's another stalwart contender for "The irony of Apple" (in case you missed it): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=451400.0 |
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hard to use btc without a computer? You can try... but more people in the country would have phones that could use m-pesa easily. m-pesa is already used by tens of millions of people in africa, the middle east and indian subcontinent as M-Paisa. This would be a more pragmatic solution for zimbabwe over bitcoin. I realise this is a bitcoin forum, but not all solutions are nails looking for the same hammer. If the people have simple feature phones then they can use the Kipochi Bitcoin wallet. This will allow them to send/receive bitcoins with one another and enable them to convert to/from M-PESA money (Ksh). Certainly, M-PESA already has a large network of users, and I think the money (Ksh) is pegged to the USD (1000 Ksh = 13 USD), giving it some stability. However, M-PESA also charges high fees (as far as I can gather, 3-6% for sending about 10 USD worth to another registered user). There are also some privacy problems (passports and national ID cards are involved). I agree that Bitcoin is not always the best solution, but here I feel it offers some promise and should not be dismissed out of hand. |
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The Russians are buying now. Their government has just declared it awesome (i.e. they've banned it) and the news is sweeping the country!
Everyone knows Russians only accumulated bitcoins through malware and ponzi scams, anyway.  Touché! I guess the global market values Russian scams more than Russian rubles. |
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DANGER!
The author's arrogance exceed's 95% (the recommended maximum level of exposure for a sane adult). We've already had one victim in Mowcore (get well soon, our hearts are with you). I killed the tab a couple of sentences in and luckily managed to recover quickly.
@BTCisthefuture: Please update your post to warn others!
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I liked the comment by Cuthbert, the 45-year-old taxi driver. Even the banks can lie to us.
Cute. |
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The Russians are buying now. Their government has just declared it awesome (i.e. they've banned it) and the news is sweeping the country!
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As far as this speculation forum is concerned, I think we can take "Whales are not stupid." as axiomatic.
By the way, how many bitcoins does a trader need to be considered a whale these days?
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I call for government regulations of these private market places.
It is not right that corporations through the use of terms and conditions (and contract law) can circumvent peoples constitutional and human rights.
We need governments acting on behalf of the people to ensure that these so called 'walled gardens' do not become areas where private and undemocratic laws can flourish. Corporations must not be allowed to become more powerful than the people.
We do not need regulation to hinder the growth of these market places, we need regulation to ensure that everyone is treated fairly.
I couldn't disagree more! Apple is not circumventing people's rights. Apple is not forcing people into its walled garden through a threat of violence. People enter into these agreements because they perceive themselves to be better off for it. I don't see much fairness in the rest of society telling them that they're wrong and forcibly removing this option from them. |
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