Soon, we will again hear condemnations that Bitcoin will fail because it's too volatile or because it's "deflationary."
Volatility won't make Bitcoin fail, but it's a major pain for every merchant trying to offer Bitcoin payment. The only way out is to get the ratio of speculation/(regular use) down. This means the number of users has to go up. Complaining about speculators is not going to achieve this. Using Bitcoin wherever possible will get us there. Volatility will only be an issue until someone forks the chain and comes up with USDcoin, a new cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin, that maintains constant parity with the BTC/USD exchange rate :-) |
|
|
|
Hi mjcmurfy, I want to point some things out. These quotes shall explain everything.
A few months ago, mjcmurfy was decrying the evils of speculation:
What changed, mjcmurfy?
lol...looks like he was complaining his sails were no good and everyone else's sails were also no good, and the sail designers are retarded, then the wind started blowing. Hahahaha, well put. Reminds me of an anecdote Christopher Hitchens used to tell, of a Navy officer cadet giving an exam and asked: Suppose you're the captain of a tall ship and the wind is blowing you towards the rocks. "I'd ask for more sails" he replied. "All right," says the examiner, "but now there's more wind blowing your ship towards them". "More sails!" says the candidate. This went on for a while until the exasperated examiner barks: "Where exactly are you getting all these sails from, son?"... "The same place you get all that wind, sir!" There are no bitcoin bears in this forum, only people who want to buy more BTC for less. When was the last time you joined a forum on a topic you think is destined to fail? |
|
|
|
Bitcoin is a fantastic, world-changing technology. But a few people are getting WAY ahead of themselves. The price of a bitcoin cannot be supported by wishes and dreams. In the end, the market will decide a price that is reflective of the underlying bitcoin economy. Bitcoin can be used as a viable trade medium at any price, granted, but at the same time it will not, and cannot, be held artificially afloat for long.
That's not what i'm seing. The BC economy is much smaller than the action on the exchanges. So the actual influence of the economy will be smaller and basicly bitcoin is played by speculators. And miners, which produce bitcoin. The economy just tags along. They had to deal with sub-1 prices, they had to deal with 30+ prices and then back to 2 and now 5 again. That price is not driven by the sales of goos or services for bitcoin. It's way too unpredictable for that. If you see a rally on the exchanges it is not because people spend bitcoin in shops. It is purely people speculating or dumping their mined coins. Those are the real factors in the price. I have been unable to find back the effects of the 'economy' (goods/services) on bitcoin pricing. But sentiment and speculation trends are easy to find. So, in fact, bitcoin has been supported by wishes and dreams all along.  This^ Market speculation will necessarily be many multiples of 'spending'... I have tried to explain this. It is not an aberration, it is how currencies work. M0 will always be a fraction of M2. Glad that there's at least a couple of people who share my view. To look for an "underlying economy" of merchants is looking at the thing upside-down. Just as with dollars, the volume of speculative exchange far exceeds the volume of commercial trade (trillions each day in Forex, while real GDP is only trillions each year). And that's with a "real currency". What if bitcoin is, as that Wired article suggests, a "meta-currency". The term implies that its primary use will be as a go-between for the real-world currencies. Price is determined by speculation, which then forms the base for commerce. Again, speculation supports commerce, not the other way around. The volume of commerce is just a fraction of the bitcoin economy, which is the huge exchange volume (speculative or otherwise) staring everyone in the face. Is there any reason or historical precedent that the commerce should come before the speculation? That seems backwards. Which came first: that bullion became valuable because it could be used to buy things, or that bullion could be used to be used to buy things because its inherent properties were conducive to storing value? Yup. This is why we won't see Bitcoin taken seriously until it can manage sustained exchange rates above $50/BTC. Because without that you can not make even reasonably large purchases without causing a liquidity crisis. Trading has to be many multiplies of 'spending' volume or 'spending' will result in wild swings in the exchange rate. If folks want to see a 'stable' Bitcoin (i.e. highly correlated to other currencies) there will first have to be trading volume to support a minimum exchange rate of $50. That means Bitcoin can be a billion dollar market... Without that, it's a niche curiosity. The other advantage of a high price per BTC is that it weeds out small time manipulators. If each BTC is worth upwards of $50, manipulating the market becomes a much more expensive proposition. Not impossible, by any means, but only within reach of those able to manage large sums of money. Seems like manipulating the price down would be pretty easy for those people with many tens of thousands of bitcoins. True, and if that was the case with very early adopters, it would make sense. Or, for that matter, for anyone who suddenly found themselves in possession of huge quantities of BTC (i.e. the allinvain or mybitcoin theft). But it would make very little sense for someone who has either mined or hoarded to dump extremely large amounts into the market, IF the price per BTC is as high as that. My point is that higher prices actually dampen the ability to manipulate in either direction. If I own 100K BTC, and the price is at $50, I have little incentive to dump them all at once (unless I want to buy myself a mansion), when smaller sales will satisfy my needs and maintain the value on the BTC that remain. I understand what you're saying but I think you're failing to take into account the worry that somebody else might dump enough bitcoins to significantly reduce your purchase power. So, you might think, you would want to do it before they do. Agreed, that's why there are runs on stock exchanges and banks... but in reality there hasn't been a run on a bank in a long time (in Europe or North America at least, South America had them in 2001). It will always be possible to manipulate any market, provided you have the right amounts of resources. But as the price of BTC climbs, the small time manipulators will be weeded out. And again I ask what I asked back in July: what would've been the impact on the US and world economy if the NYSE had been hacked and every share sold at its rock-bottom price? Or if most of the big banks had been hacked? That was the equivalent of the MtGox hack in June. Some say we will always have scandals. But that's a bit like saying we will always have airplane crashes... it's true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. I can say quite confidently that there will be an airplane crash that will take dozens of lives in the next year. But to say that because of that aviation is as unsafe now as it was in the 1930's would be more than a bit misguided. |
|
|
|
We will have a BITCOIN booth at the huge Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. This is a massive media event. Last year there were 5000 media and reporters at this event, and a total of about 140,000 people. If you want to see some good, accurate reporting about Bitcoin, I would encourage you to contact every news reporter you know and tell them to come by our booth to interview us. We are booth #70018 in the Venetian Ballroom. In our booth we will have the following personnel available for media interviews: Tony Gallippi, CEO of Bit-Pay Stephen Pair, CTO of Bit-Pay Roger Ver, CEO of Memory Dealers and Director of Marketing of BitInstant Alison Skipper, Sales/Marketing of Bit-Pay I have some brochures printed up which I will post here in this OP as soon as we lift the embargo (they include some top-secret unreleased Bit-Pay products ) Roger will be selling virtual and physical bitcoins in the booth for cash, credit cards, and PayPal. Yes, virtual bitcoins for credit card, right in the booth! We are spending about $10,000 of our own money to attend this show and promote Bitcoin to the world. I am asking the forum members to help us get as many reporters to come by our booth as possible! (hint - a little bitcoin scandal next Tuesday wouldn't hurt). If you would like to make a donation towards our efforts, you can visit http://lovebitcoins.org and we will list you on the site as a supporter. BONUS: if you make a donation by Sunday, I will have a printed list of all the supporters in our booth for every reporter to see! Thanks Tony This is big... well done! |
|
|
|
Bitcoin is a fantastic, world-changing technology. But a few people are getting WAY ahead of themselves. The price of a bitcoin cannot be supported by wishes and dreams. In the end, the market will decide a price that is reflective of the underlying bitcoin economy. Bitcoin can be used as a viable trade medium at any price, granted, but at the same time it will not, and cannot, be held artificially afloat for long.
That's not what i'm seing. The BC economy is much smaller than the action on the exchanges. So the actual influence of the economy will be smaller and basicly bitcoin is played by speculators. And miners, which produce bitcoin. The economy just tags along. They had to deal with sub-1 prices, they had to deal with 30+ prices and then back to 2 and now 5 again. That price is not driven by the sales of goos or services for bitcoin. It's way too unpredictable for that. If you see a rally on the exchanges it is not because people spend bitcoin in shops. It is purely people speculating or dumping their mined coins. Those are the real factors in the price. I have been unable to find back the effects of the 'economy' (goods/services) on bitcoin pricing. But sentiment and speculation trends are easy to find. So, in fact, bitcoin has been supported by wishes and dreams all along. This^ Market speculation will necessarily be many multiples of 'spending'... I have tried to explain this. It is not an aberration, it is how currencies work. M0 will always be a fraction of M2. Glad that there's at least a couple of people who share my view. To look for an "underlying economy" of merchants is looking at the thing upside-down. Just as with dollars, the volume of speculative exchange far exceeds the volume of commercial trade (trillions each day in Forex, while real GDP is only trillions each year). And that's with a "real currency". What if bitcoin is, as that Wired article suggests, a "meta-currency". The term implies that its primary use will be as a go-between for the real-world currencies. Price is determined by speculation, which then forms the base for commerce. Again, speculation supports commerce, not the other way around. The volume of commerce is just a fraction of the bitcoin economy, which is the huge exchange volume (speculative or otherwise) staring everyone in the face. Is there any reason or historical precedent that the commerce should come before the speculation? That seems backwards. Which came first: that bullion became valuable because it could be used to buy things, or that bullion could be used to be used to buy things because its inherent properties were conducive to storing value? Yup. This is why we won't see Bitcoin taken seriously until it can manage sustained exchange rates above $50/BTC. Because without that you can not make even reasonably large purchases without causing a liquidity crisis. Trading has to be many multiplies of 'spending' volume or 'spending' will result in wild swings in the exchange rate. If folks want to see a 'stable' Bitcoin (i.e. highly correlated to other currencies) there will first have to be trading volume to support a minimum exchange rate of $50. That means Bitcoin can be a billion dollar market... Without that, it's a niche curiosity. The other advantage of a high price per BTC is that it weeds out small time manipulators. If each BTC is worth upwards of $50, manipulating the market becomes a much more expensive proposition. Not impossible, by any means, but only within reach of those able to manage large sums of money. Seems like manipulating the price down would be pretty easy for those people with many tens of thousands of bitcoins. True, and if that was the case with very early adopters, it would make sense. Or, for that matter, for anyone who suddenly found themselves in possession of huge quantities of BTC (i.e. the allinvain or mybitcoin theft). But it would make very little sense for someone who has either mined or hoarded to dump extremely large amounts into the market, IF the price per BTC is as high as that. My point is that higher prices actually dampen the ability to manipulate in either direction. If I own 100K BTC, and the price is at $50, I have little incentive to dump them all at once (unless I want to buy myself a mansion), when smaller sales will satisfy my needs and maintain the value on the BTC that remain. |
|
|
|
Bitcoin is a fantastic, world-changing technology. But a few people are getting WAY ahead of themselves. The price of a bitcoin cannot be supported by wishes and dreams. In the end, the market will decide a price that is reflective of the underlying bitcoin economy. Bitcoin can be used as a viable trade medium at any price, granted, but at the same time it will not, and cannot, be held artificially afloat for long.
That's not what i'm seing. The BC economy is much smaller than the action on the exchanges. So the actual influence of the economy will be smaller and basicly bitcoin is played by speculators. And miners, which produce bitcoin. The economy just tags along. They had to deal with sub-1 prices, they had to deal with 30+ prices and then back to 2 and now 5 again. That price is not driven by the sales of goos or services for bitcoin. It's way too unpredictable for that. If you see a rally on the exchanges it is not because people spend bitcoin in shops. It is purely people speculating or dumping their mined coins. Those are the real factors in the price. I have been unable to find back the effects of the 'economy' (goods/services) on bitcoin pricing. But sentiment and speculation trends are easy to find. So, in fact, bitcoin has been supported by wishes and dreams all along. This^ Market speculation will necessarily be many multiples of 'spending'... I have tried to explain this. It is not an aberration, it is how currencies work. M0 will always be a fraction of M2. Glad that there's at least a couple of people who share my view. To look for an "underlying economy" of merchants is looking at the thing upside-down. Just as with dollars, the volume of speculative exchange far exceeds the volume of commercial trade (trillions each day in Forex, while real GDP is only trillions each year). And that's with a "real currency". What if bitcoin is, as that Wired article suggests, a "meta-currency". The term implies that its primary use will be as a go-between for the real-world currencies. Price is determined by speculation, which then forms the base for commerce. Again, speculation supports commerce, not the other way around. The volume of commerce is just a fraction of the bitcoin economy, which is the huge exchange volume (speculative or otherwise) staring everyone in the face. Is there any reason or historical precedent that the commerce should come before the speculation? That seems backwards. Which came first: that bullion became valuable because it could be used to buy things, or that bullion could be used to be used to buy things because its inherent properties were conducive to storing value? Yup. This is why we won't see Bitcoin taken seriously until it can manage sustained exchange rates above $50/BTC. Because without that you can not make even reasonably large purchases without causing a liquidity crisis. Trading has to be many multiplies of 'spending' volume or 'spending' will result in wild swings in the exchange rate. If folks want to see a 'stable' Bitcoin (i.e. highly correlated to other currencies) there will first have to be trading volume to support a minimum exchange rate of $50. That means Bitcoin can be a billion dollar market... Without that, it's a niche curiosity. The other advantage of a high price per BTC is that it weeds out small time manipulators. If each BTC is worth upwards of $50, manipulating the market becomes a much more expensive proposition. Not impossible, by any means, but only within reach of those able to manage large sums of money. |
|
|
|
WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY NOW?
They are waiting for the trend reversal to jump in with "we told you OMG bitcoin is doomed once again". Heh, haven't you heard? Bitcoin is dead, my friend. |
|
|
|
The ask depth is looking a little scary right now. I really hope it fills back in.
Scary for you  Scary for a lot of people. I'm worried that if we snowball into the same sort of behavior we saw last April through June we're likely to see the same sort of long term reversal. I don't think the integrity of the project can handle that a second time. You expecting another mtgox hack? Maybe another mybitcoin fiasco? Perhaps another allinvain theft or bitomat scandal? No? Ok then... |
|
|
|
Therefore, if you know it's going down, sell and buy 2x, 3x, etc. more BTC at the lower price for holding.
The only thing you should really know for sure, is that you don't know. You don't *KNOW* shit. Neither do I. In the long term, we have a deflationary, uncounterfeitable "commodency", so ultimately it can only go up. I love debunking this fallacy. Remember IxCoin? In the long term, it is a deflationary, uncountrerfeitable "commodency". But in what direction is it going to go? As long as Bitcoin is still alive, the death of Ixcoin or any other clone only buttresses Bitcoin's standing. It has huge first mover advantage over anything that came after it. What Ixcoin had, aside from uncounterfeitability and deflation, was also the massive hurdle of having to compete with Bitcoin. I just debunked your debunking... I love it as much as you :-) |
|
|
|
I mean, this is actually a really good idea. The problem is most cabbies are working paycheck to paycheck and renting the cars. What is the fastest/cheapest way to get money from BTC--> USD right now? The other thing is that alot of cabbies are pissed because the city has recently (last month) decided to force them to take credit cards. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/12/12/mayor-emanuel-calls-for-new-tighter-regulations-on-taxis/It is a good idea that will work for both customer and business if it can be convenient and trustworthy enough. Perhaps what is needed is some escrow service where the cabbie can feel comfortable being paid until 6 verifications. Cabs are heavily regulated so, as long as nothing too crazy is going on, the driver could be tracked down if they attempt the double charge. First, this guy is great he has a great story to tell. Anyways, you mentioned what is the fastest way from BTC -> USD ? I was thinking this guy could own a reloadable credit card from us and when people want to pay him for there ride they they send us the bitcoins and we fund his card with USD within minutes to go spend. Now our fee of $4.95 might be a little to pricey but can figure out some wiggle room if there is dedicated amount of transactions. Just throwing this thought out there cool story. These are virtual cards right ? A real physical card would be epic, transfer bitcoints, wait a hour, withdraw in any ATM, but probaly a bit hard to sell as a legit service. So they can be used to pay for things online, but likely not to pay the rental bill, insurance or gas. You can already do that through Paxum. |
|
|
|
The reason for the "Buy and hold isn't a smart trading method", is because everyone KNOWS the price is going back down eventually. Therefore, if you know it's going down, sell and buy 2x, 3x, etc. more BTC at the lower price for holding.
The only thing you should really know for sure, is that you don't know. What if it doesn't 'go back down eventually' just like you envision. What if it spikes down to a penny above your bids then immediately back up over $10 never to return to single figures? What if it spikes down, you buy in at $2, the govt makes it illegal and it immediately tanks to a few cents... forever destined to remain an underground currency never worth more then $0.10 What if something happens that nobody has even considered yet that takes it to the moon/zero. You don't *KNOW* shit. Neither do I. In the short term, you especially don't know shit. Some geek who was mining back in 2009 may wish to finally buy himself a Porsche... Some 1%er may wish to diversify and throw a few of his millions into this Bitcoin thing. In the short term anything is possible. In the long term, we have a deflationary, uncounterfeitable "commodency", so ultimately it can only go up. |
|
|
|
|
Happy birthday indeed! One more year to go till the reward drops by half :-)
|
|
|
|
The 88 million she wasted on that apartment could buy all bitcoins in existence for $10 a piece... haha No, it couldn't. I'm assuming you mean it couldn't because people wouldn't sell all bitcoins to one person for $10 a piece. Otherwise, are you trying to argue the fact that $10 time roughly 8 million bitcoins is more than $88 million? No, it wouldn't because by the time she's spent the first million, the value of the remaining BTC will have risen to around $50 a piece... by the second million, it would be closer to $150, and so on. |
|
|
|
Nice selloff! Strong resistance here.
We'll see. Some oscillation is to be expected. I'm happy with anything over 4.2 as the next stable price. there you go. I wonder what the price will do when America wakes up  Edit: Wait no that makes no sense. Isn't America awake by now? Or do you all sleep till noon? That might be around 2023 or so :-) |
|
|
|
Call me when bitcoin reach 30 again  As others have pointed out, getting to those numbers is going to be much, much more difficult than before. There's going to be more selling pressure on the way up in addition to there being more standing orders on the order book this time around. It'd take ~$2,000,000 to move the price that high right now. In reality it's going to take several times that amount as people actively sell. Oh no! Two million dollars! (too bad you can't see my Dr. Evil gesture right now) :-) |
|
|
|
|
5th floor, menswear... 6th floor, lingerie :-)
|
|
|
|
Oh wow... but which one do they want to do, a 51% attack or just mine a large amount of bitcoins?
Why waste the time and effort mining? They can buy every single btc in existence for what is to them a very small sum... and continue buying till the last of the 21 M... Basically any goverment or reasonable sized entity could do it if they wanted to kill Bitcoin. False. Buying every bitcoin is impossible as price would approach infinity. They could buy a few million, but doing so would make Bitcoin the number 1 financial news topic and instead of "killing bitcoin" it would almost guarantee its success. True, Evor, but if they time it right, and do it in a calculated way, they could control enough of it, even as the price shoots up, to make it worth their while. And it would guarantee them that control on pretty solid fundamentals on how the markets work, as opposed to having to take over the network. It would be silly for China or any other government to attempt to "own" Bitcoin, when all they really need is to control it. Plus, in the specific case of China, it would give them control over a currency that isn't being kept artificially devalued, freeing the Yuan for their domestic needs. They'd have to be fools not to even be looking at BTC |
|
|
|
|
Not sure if you were trying to be helpful or funny, but you were neither. Again, I need to be able to load up my 0.4 wallet.dat file to 0.5, and it won't do it. If someone has an idea, please let me know.
Edit: found a fix. Got an old computer with an old version of the client. Uploaded wallet to it, then installed v0.5 on top of it.
|
|
|
|
|
Hi all, sorry if this has already been addressed. I upgraded to version 0.4 when it came out a few months ago. I then saved my wallet.dat file onto an external drive.
Today, after downloading v0.5, I tried as usual to just copy the wallet.dat file into the appdata/roaming/bitcoin folder, but when I try to start up the client, it crashes.
If I let it start up with its own wallet.dat, it runs perfectly, downloads the blockchain and everything... but then my wallet is empty, which isn't good :-)
Aside from trying the same trick on another computer hopefully running v0.4, is there a known issue with trying to start up v0.5 with a v0.4 wallet.dat? How do I fix it?
Many thanks
|
|
|
|
Actually, no. You should not be free to teach your kids whatever you wish, because your child's education isn't about you, it's about your child.
So, I guess you get to decide what is taught to children then? I suppose you are fully prepared to take people's children away and kill their parents to impose your world view as well? Sorry, but I don't want to live in your murderous and totalitarian world. PS. I find it ironic that you seem to support state controlled education and use religious teachings as your justification for it. It's ironic because were it not for the lobbying of religious institutions in the mid 1800s in the US, we might not have a statist education system today. Religious organizations lobbied heavily to impose a state run education system precisely because they could use it to force their teachings on people. World view? If you really think whether the world is 6,000 years old is a matter of personal view, then you and I have very little to discuss... And you are an idiot. Parents are also not free to withhold medical treatment from their children because it is their view that Jesus will swoop down from the sky and cure little Bobby's leukemia. Yet I guess you would call me totalitarian and murderous for wanting to provide health care for Bobby, in spite of his idiotic parents' wishes. Again, it is the rights of the CHILD that I am speaking of here, a concept that seems quite alien to you. And, even though I thought I had articulated it quite clearly in my original post, the idea is to have a standard of education that, through a process of free inquiry and openness, provides children with a minimum ability to discern fact firm baloney... A process you quite clearly seem not to have been exposed to. Beyond that minimum standard, if the parents want to send their children to Madrassas, Sunday Schools, Hebrew camp or whatever they choose, they are clearly free to do so. When faced with proper education, however, those other "world views" tend to succumb to their own narrow-mindedness. This has been the case in places like Sweden, Norway, Finland... It is where the education system fails abysmally that the religious world views have a chance at gaining a stronghold, places like Pakistan and the US. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
