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Plus, it's not so funny the third time around... check the threads, it's been done before.
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A few threads regarding inherent value and the nature of currencies got me thinking. Most bitcoin proponents agree that, much like the other great game changers of the past century or so, bitcoin will require, and result, in a paradigm shift. I propose that the shift comes in the vestments of a duality... the currency/commodity duality. This resonates with me, as I clearly remember the moment I understood the particle/wave duality in physics, much in the same way other people remember where they were when JFK was shot. There seem to be two distinct camps in the bitcoin world, and ever so slowly, they are converging, though much to their respective dismay. Some see it as a currency, they want more stores that accept BTC, more website and services that one can buy with BTC. They also tend to want bitcoin to remain generally stable, or even come down in price, in order to make it more appealing to merchants who otherwise will need to constantly adjust their prices to match those in fiat currencies. Others treat bitcoin as a commodity. You can keep them in the hopes that their value will rise, not just versus other currencies, but in terms of their own purchasing power as well. The currency camp sees the commodity camp as a threat ("the speculators are killing bitcoin's chances of establishing itself as a true currency")... the commodity camp hates the fact that the currency camp actively tries to dampen the price of BTC, which is the exact opposite of what they want. May I suggest, the true change when it comes to bitcoin is that it is BOTH a currency and a commodity? If I owned an ounce of gold, and could magically punch numbers on my keyboard and send you 0.00023 of an ounce, which you would receive instantly, would that be a currency? If I was an inhabitant of the Yap Islands and could magically send you 0.000012 grammes of my family's stone, would that be a commodity? The beauty, and the elegance of bitcoin lies precisely in that it is a commodity that can act as a currency, or a currency that can act as a commodity, much in the same way that an electron is a particle that behaves like a wave or a wave that behaves like a particle, depending on which side of the double slit you're on. The sooner we all agree on this duality (which ironically is the true SINGUlarity of the bitcoin experiment), the easier it will be to come together as a group and the greater the chances for bitcoin to succeed. The price shoots up? Who cares? Some smart person out there will come up with a solution that will allow merchants to still accept BTC as payment, even if the exchange rate changes several times an hour. That, in turn, will raise its value and comfort those holding BTC, who will feel free to spend it, because it's easier to spend 0.0034 BTC on a can of coke than it is to exchange 0.0034 BTC for 1.25 USD to buy the can. Then again, the particle wave duality in physics has been with us for the better part of a century and I'm willing to be most people on the street still haven't grasped it... so we have our work cut out for us. And we really need that philosophy board  Cheers, everyone |
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Would you rather hold on to something something that is going up in value (like bitcoin) or something that is constantly going down in value? (like the us dollar) And in fact, why would you EVER want to hold on to something that is constantly dropping in value? Sure, a rational bitcoin user would hold onto their bitcoins... until they saw something that they would much rather have like an asset which appreciates faster than bitcoin, or food.
Or that video game they wanted to buy... Or that car... Or that house... Or that theatre show... Or rent... The two are unrelated, because bitcoin is BOTH a commodity and a currency. |
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You could buy a few barges, string them together somewhere in the middle of the ocean and call it bitcoinland, I guess...
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Anyone who thinks a currency can be pegged to anything, but especially to another currency, needs to visit South America in the 90's... That didn't turn out so well now, did it?
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Having just witnessed the two-dollar plus rally from 12.50 just now, I'm not subscribing to the 'slow death' theory either.
How do you know that's not just interventionist policy on the part of some early adopters? Question 2: if it is, does it matter? Early adopters would be rich in btc, not in USD. Consequently, while the early adopters are more likely to be able to drive the price of BTC down by selling, they're less likely to drive it up by buying. There seems to be the conventional wisdom around that the price was on a downward slide, held back every now and then by the intervention of someone putting up a wall. But there is the alternative analysis, which is that the price was on a steady climb, BROUGHT DOWN every now and then by someone putting up a wall below it. Time will tell, I guess. |
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He always interviews like that, this wasn't a one-off. For me, he is total cringe. I hope he learns something before he embarrasses the technology again.
You are being way too harsh. Also, while it's true that he isn't the most articulate spokesperson for bitcoin out there, let's not forget he does speak to a growing segment of the population (i.e. the young). Now, this may not make much of a difference today... but these are the folks that will be carrying bitcoin forward five to ten years from now. |
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That is why rookies will usually never make money.
usually never? You can't qualify an absolute. It is sometimes always stupid. Don't fret, Billyjoeallen, Edward50 will learn about that in high school some day... it's the way it usually always happens. |
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Man, how is it even possible... Piper67, how many overseas bank accounts have you tried to open? It's incredibly difficult nowadays if you have an uncommon business model. I spent 6 months trying to get a US bank account for my business. I ended up opening accounts at three different US banks. Each account was closed by the bank before it was fully operational, with no explanation other than that they didn't want my business, even though I gave them all the paperwork and documents that they requested. Banks are terribly risk-averse. They don't make much of their profit from retail banking anymore, so it's not worth their while to accept anything other than boring run-of-the-mill businesses. For any other business, I guess they are worried about the risk of getting too much grief from their regulators. True, my point is that when their first European bank account was closed, they should have tried opening up several others, instead of putting all their eggs in one basket. They should have several functioning accounts anyway, just for redundancy. As for opening an account in the US, I'm not there and I was able to open one in six days. Yes, they ask for paperwork, and yes, I understand they're risk averse. All I'm saying is that an exchange that handles millions of dollars a month in transactions should be thinking several levels deep, not just on the surface. At any rate, Tradehill just announced they're accepting Euro transfers. I'm not sure what their contingency plans are if that account gets frozen, but for the time being at least it seems Europe will be able to start trading again soon. |
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Whats really needed is a payment terminal solution for real shops. Go out and ask any small shop owner if they like to not pay a Visa card fee, and they will love the sound of it. But they need an easy way to accept bitcoins. I really think bitcoin's biggest advantage lies in online payments. That's not to say that a POS terminal wouldn't be useful, just that the biggest growth area in the early stages is likely to be with internet payments given bitcoin is an internet currency. The two are not mutually incompatible, though. A point of sale terminal that works in conjunction with the bitcoin app the customer has installed in his iphone, blackberry or android... now there's an idea!!! |
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Already mentioned: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Coin+cyber+realm/5121396/story.htmlThis article is notable because it is quite well-written, and is more reader-friendly than most. It should be reviewed when looking for nice ways to explain the bitcoin concept to lay audiences. One minor quibble is that it says there are 6.2 million bitcoins. The current number is 6.854 (according to bitcoincharts.com), and of course the number grows steadily. We should be saying "about 7 million" to the media so that it's reasonably accurate for a while (unless we want to timestamp the article by using the exact current number:). It was already mentioned in this thread... but just for everyone who is outside of Canada, the Ottawa Citizen is one of the top and most reputable newspapers in the country. |
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We are proud to announce that TradeHill is now accepting Euro deposits and withdrawals! We will not be charging a fee for SEPA transfers. Incoming and outgoing transfers within the SEPA zone are both free. Tell your friends in Europe and let the Bitcoin trading begin! Follow this link for instructions and bank details: https://www.tradehill.com/DepositOverview/EURJered Nicely done, guys... let's see if this gets things moving a bit. |
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Can someone explain to me what Ron Paul's point was?
I just looked up some definitions of money, and "generally accepted medium of financial exchange" seems to be a key part of the definitions.
All sides agree that gold has value, and stable value at that. But is it money?
Will the grocery store or car dealer generally accept a chunk of gold as payment for goods?
If I owned a grocery store or care dealership, I would be very upset if my salesmen didn't accept payment in Gold. It has always held its value better than toilet paper poo poo money. That is reason enough to take it over fiat. Would you still be singing this tune when you are unable to unload your gold to anyone, resulting in your company going bust because everything that the company needs to run is paid for in dollars? you will not EVER be unable to unload your gold. you will more likely be unable to get someone to take your dollars, even if you put some € in there somewhere^^ Yup... have you ever tried offloading those Zimbabwean dollars on the streets of London or New York? Want to place a bet on whether you can get rid of those faster than I can trade gold for any kind of cash? No? Thought so... |
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it probably had nothing to do with the CNN video and had everything to do with dwolla clearing and gox reinstating euro transfers
Except the Euro transfers weren't reinstated... they're supposed to come up with news on Thursday and they will be reinstated next Tuesday at the latest (so they say). |
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Indeed, for last 6 month I am offering every inflation proponent to fork bitcoin and create inflatocoin and so far not a single attempt, not even a hint.
They do talk the talk but they do not walk the walk. Do we have to fork the inflatocoin for them?
Heh, Vladimir, it's not worth the effort... if someone truly wants an inflationary currency I can give them hundreds of them, starting with the USD. It's fascinating how some people fail to grasp the fundamentals of bitcoin... not a day goes by without someone suggesting "let's make it inflationary", "let's peg it to the dollar", "let's build a central authority for it"... some of these people are trolls, others are just infected with memes that won't let go. |
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It is with heavy hearts that we deliver some bad news. We just got off the phone with our newly assigned bank (SG) in France and it appears the branch we have assigned cannot authorize our account until they deliberate with their “Higher Ups”. This is due to the sheer amount of funds we expect to be processing, along with the fact that bitcoin is fringe and has ambiguity associated with it that banks don’t currently understand. We were fully expecting to announce to all that our European bank accounts are now up and ready to start processing funds, however we have been advised that we will not hear back from SG until Thursday July 21.
Euro transfers (both deposits and withdrawals) are effectively frozen, however we’re going to look at other means of enabling Euro transfers in the mean time. So please bear with us as we work to get this up and running as soon as possible.
Thank you for your continued patience, we hope to come back with some good news soon.
Man, how is it even possible that an operation dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars a day drops the ball like this? MtGox should have accounts in SEVERAL European banks, as well as US, Canadian, Australian, Japanese, Hong Kong... please, guys, time to raise the bar of professionalism a bit. |
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The new bank account is opened Tuesday at 11:30, and we should have the IBAN by 13:00. As soon as we have it, it will be posted online.
All withdraws so far will be processed Tuesday evening, or Wednesday in worst case.
Uh... 11:30 and 13:00 where??? |
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That was actually not half bad. I wonder when it will air... if it will air |
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Shhhh its a coded message. jk
if a person is not good at english (even if it is their first language) Doesn't mean they don't have useful information. I'm not saying this post is accurate.
No one can know where the bitcoin market will go, I expect it will keep with the pattern pointed out somewhere, and spike again in a month or so.
Oh, of course someone can have something of value to say even if they aren't all that articulate, or even knowledgable. In this case, though, his/her information is useless (really, it's an opinion, not information in the strict sense), and my answer was to his/her suggestion that he/she was in any way capable of educating me or anyone else on this forum. And, for the record, English is my second language - or at least my other language. Cheers |
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IMHO it's way too early to gauge the direction of the BTC based on temporary spike in the charts.
Agreed. Reading tea leaves here. As I said once before... a monkey with a ouija board has a better chance of predicting where this is going than anyone here... but it's fun to correct the mistakes made by the little trolls. |
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