:~/clients-master/Maxcoin-linux64$ ./maxcoin-qt
./maxcoin-qt: error while loading shared libraries: libminiupnpc.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Watching trading closely with the BTCChina.com price movement, and knowing Chinese culture, where corruption and well positioned networks taking care of theselves isn't really considered corrupt like we in the West think, I think there is little doubt that the very Government officials who banned deposits onto the exchanges are themselves getting Yuan on the exchanges. Even if they aren't getting their own deposits on right now, the Chinese population assumes that's what's happening.  It's just the accepted way their economy and culture works, it's considered normal.

BTC made a $120 move in under 48 hours centering on Christmas day when all Western banks are closed. This move was clearly led by China. How do they do that when no new money is allowed on the exchange?

There is $15 Trillion in new money created in China over the last 5 years. You can see that it hasn't been too hard to get the money out if you go to my cities of Sydney and Vancouver. But surely there are many more billion$ to get out of China, enter bitcoin. They will be buying for a long time to come, and will be a big part of the run to $5000 and beyond.

you mean you sat on too much fiat too long

The Renminbi is rapidly growing as an international currency. It recently came into the top 8 or 10 of most used trade currencies. The government of China's priority lies in promoting the renminbi not bitcoin. Bitcoin is facilitating capital flight from China. Why would they allow it? You are going to see a clampdown on bitcoin in all developing countries.

The only countries that stand to benefit from bitcoin are, ironically, financial centers. That's right! Places where bankers rule is where bitcoin is being welcomed the most. Consider Switzerland, Singapore and Germany. These countries are adopting bitcoin because they see it as a threat and it is essential for their survival that they play along. The only exception to this are the USA, because they want to preserve the role of the dollar, and the UK. I imagine the British are just following the Americans in this. Got to preserve that special relationship!

Any idea how much something like TrueCrypt would cost to write from scratch?

1. Buying goods with Bitcoin decreases value as merchants immediately cash out.  New money doesn't flow into falling prices of Bitcoin.

2. Numbers aren't easily digestible.  Ever pay 0.004994321 BTC for a loaf of bread?

3. BTC is not deflationary.  Altcoins such as LTC extend the supply if adopted.

But what to do?

hey David,

 unfortunately the altchain.org site was hacked recently so that link no longer works.  ASMOF, it was hacked not long after that link was posted.

 seems you are new here, most of of the people posting here are running cheap scams and take offense when anyone takes attention away from them for a moment.  There is at least one person posting to this thread on my ignore list.  I can't even imagine how someone could possibly read this forum without an extensive block list because a good 80+% of the posts are useless, distractions, scams, etc.

-bm

This has been discussed in other threads already.

can we merge these "is bitcoin money? / what is currency?" threads into one big one? this is getting ridiculous

edit: I pm'd a mod

Feel free to redefine "sound money" to take into account bitcoin.

But honestly, I don't hear the phrase "sound money" that much, where do you keep hearing it?

Modern economic definitions have not quite caught up yet with redefining everything in terms of bitcoin.

I googled it for you and got back:

"Sound money is a phrase technically synonymous with a currency backed by or pegged to some good or commodity. It can also mean a currency that is not rapidly inflating or deflating in value. As even the technical definition is rather fuzzy, in reality, it's often synonymous with whatever economic woo its promoter is hyping. Sound money is often a cover for gold buggery, though it can mean whatever the hell the bullshit purveyor wants it to mean."