I fear the same. It feels like they want to remain within an eternal loop of false promises followed by more borrowing.

The only real solution for Greece is to leave the Eurozone. Only with a debased currency they will be able to compete in international markets. It should have been already done five years ago...

Unfortunately the majority of the Greek people is believing in the propaganda of the extreme leftists. They think it's cruelty of the creditors that they demand austerity while in fact it's impudent of the debtor to demand more payment while at the same denying to take action to become solvent again.

Not, if it is a one-way buy BTC only ATM.

Cashing out Bitcoin is simply not a good idea. There's no reason to switch back to the government-endorsed fiat scam when you own the best currency in the world. If Bitcoin goes mainstream, you will be able to buy everything with Bitcoin. Fiat money will be a thing of the past.

But regardless: If you want to transact anonymously, it's best to do it face-2-face.

Ask yourself: Would it be any better if you had to trust a central authority instead of trusting a decentralized authority of miners? Surely not. Why should this issue (if it was) scale up (become bigger) with a growing network, when there's no change in rules? That makes no sense.

People who believe that central control is better are insane. A central authority can shut down everything at once. Believing in the benevolence of central authorities is sure to meet disappointment. The very reason Bitcoin was build is getting rid of central control. Otherwise you could just use Paypal and enjoy having your account frozen if you don't comply with their arbitrary policies.

I'd be convinced if prices stay consistently above $500 for at least three months with solid volume on upwards movements. But before that can happen, I think we will go through a longer period (half a year or longer) of stabilization in the $300-400 range.
Personally I do not wish for parabolic price jumps, because these tend not to be sustainable and might be problematic for the infrastructure. However I'm almost sure that exactly these will happen again sooner or later...

Too much hype is not good. But not because you can't buy more... The problem is that the system should have sufficient usability and market penetration. Otherwise the new users will experience problems and might leave Bitcoin in disappointment and anger. However I'm afraid that boom-bust-cycles are a result of human nature, which will never be changed. Most people pay attention, when there's some immediate benefit or danger and are otherwise bored. Those who actually think about a concept and base their decisions on reasoning are a minority.

So there's no chance to prevent media-induced hype and investment bubbles. It's the people.

I agree. Even with the current blocksize limit there enough room to grow if the dust is driven out.


I like your suggestions. Unfortunately the crowd is blindly following Gavin's toxic plan. Hopefully the more sane developers will prevail and a hard-fork will be prevented because that would be bad for everyone.

We need a healthy fee market with enough pressure to drive spam out. For the dust-lovers there will be alternative solutions. It's idiotic to risk the security of the whole system just to accommodate the obscure needs of one-candy-at-a-time-purchasers.

This. It makes no sense to make a fiat >> BTC >>  fiat purchase, when you can do a direct fiat purchase. It's better to either keep your coins or spend them with businesses that really accept BTC.

We need a Bitcoin-only closed-loop economy. Using conversion methods is not helping in reaching this goal, because it draws funds away from real Bitcoin supporters.

Maximale Zustimmung von mir. Der Tag an dem PayPal untergeht wird für mich alljährlich Grund zum feiern sein.

Es widerstrebt mir schon allein, mich nur gedanklich mit PayPal-spezifischen Problemen zu beschäftigen, weil dann diese Finanzsklaverei beginnt, mein Gehirn zu kontaminieren.

Wer Bitcoin kaufen will ohne sich dem ganzen wahnhaften Überwachungsterror zu unterziehen tut dies am besten Face2Face. Wenn man Glück hat, lernt man dabei sogar nette Leute kennen.

Rise yes. Parabolic rise not so sure (using a parabolic indicator does not mean that price appreciation will be parabolic... ). In my opinion we will stabilize first in a $300-400 range for another half year.

I expect the next bubble will happen shortly before or after the next reward halving.

That's not an attack, because there is no problem with transactions that pay an adequate fee. It's simply spam that won't last, because miners and fees are adjusting so the spammers will just burn money.

That said, I still think it's advisable to enforce a more aggressive policy against such dust transactions. Fees should rise non-linearly under circumstances that indicate dust transactions.

I don't think it will take 20 years for Bitcoin to gain significant mainstream adoption. You have to keep in mind that adoption doesn't happen linearly - it's happening exponentially. I'm not so sure if Bitcoin will become the only currency in the world, it's more likely that there will be competing ones. However even if Bitcoin is adopted only by 10% of the world population the implications for value are extreme.

My optimism for Bitcoin has never changed since the first time I did a transaction with it, because makes things easier in a way that can be experienced by everybody.

Völlig richtig, jedoch hat der Betrug im Fall unseres Geldsystems so gigantische Ausmaße angenommen, dass die gesamte Wirtschaft davon abhängt. Deshalb wird der Betrug auch aufrechterhalten, bzw. sogar in noch großere Dimensionen gepusht, weil sich konstruktionsbedingt ein Geldmengen-Wachstumszwang ergibt.

Es besteht eine gewisse Chance dieses System durch Bitcoin abzulösen, denn bei Bitcoin besteht zumindest keine Notwendigkeit Fractional Reserve zu betreiben (da nahezu unbegrenzt teilbar; d.h. Geldmangel kann nicht auftreten). Der Anreiz dazu ist natürlich da - nur es besteht hier ein realistische Chance, dass der verbrecherische Charakter solchen Tuns erkannt wird, weil es sich dann (im Gegensatz zu Fiat) um eine klare Abweichung von der Norm handelt.

Die Ablösung des bestehenden Betrugssystems durch Bitcoin wird natürlich für alle diejenigen extrem desaströs werden, welche den Systemwechsel zu spät bemerken.

Grundsätzlich ist es doch toll, wenn solche simplen Investmentvehikel verfügbar sind: Die normalen Leute können ohne Lernhürden eine paar Bitcoin-IOUs erwerben. Das ist ja nur der erste Schritt zum richtigen Bitcoin-Besitz.

Solche Investmentvehikel werden natürlich irgendwann überflüssig sein, wenn Bitcoin sich als Währung etabliert hat.

Was mich bei diesem ETN interessieren würde: Kann man sich die Bitcoin-Anrechte auch in Form echter Bitcoin ausliefern lassen?

This event is of great historical importance. It is a signal that the balance of power in the world is changing -  namely shifting away form the US.

Of course the NDB will not be operated out of altruistic motives, but to expand and consolidate the influence of its founding members. However for countries that need investment this is good news, because they now have an alternative to the World Bank.

Hopefully the US will not increase their warmongering because of it...

Basically you're right. The problem is that people will most likely use the default setting of their wallet for fees. If that isn't adjusted to the current situation, the transaction won't be confirmed.

It's the sudden onset of these spam attacks that make them problematic: A transaction might have been sent with a fee which was adequate at the time of sending, but reaches the mempool at roughly the same time of the attack with the result that the fee is no longer adequate.

Well then Bitcoin doesn't make sense for you, because transactions are prioritized exactly this way. Bitcoin offers extremely fast transactions and extremely low transactions fees - just not for cent-value transactions.

The maximum blocksize will have to increase a bit to make sidechains possible. But it makes absolutely no sense to increase it just to include any kind of transaction dust. People will be able to cheaply throw Satoshis at each other, they just will be doing it on a secondary layer. Everybody will be satisfied and the security of Bitcoin will not be compromised.

Why would they even want to use their only valuable assets to control the exchange rate of worthless fiat paper? That makes no sense at all.

The point is that currency devaluation is part of the solution for Greece. Only with a currency that's weaker than the Euro they will be able to compete in international trade.

I think the current problems are less dramatic than you think. You have to pay a bit higher fees, yes, but it does in no way hinder regular transactions.

You point out correctly that increasing the maximum blocksize is a risky decision. If decentralization is hurt, the entire Bitcoin system is at stake. In my opinion, higher fees are the only solution to spam attacks. We need a healthy fee market. Bitcoin itself doesn't scale well enough to include all microtransactions.

Solutions are already in the works. Sidechains will offer a faster, cheaper, and sufficiently reliable ways to transact in <$1 values. Small-value transactions do not need the same level of security as higher value ones anyway.

So there will be solutions on top of Bitcoin that address the problem. However even with a very conservative approach to blocksize-increases, I don't think that it will ever be a problem to send >$5 transactions without using such solutions for a reasonable fee.

People with a Greek bank account that sell BTC for wire transfer must be crazy. There's a high probability that they will loose a large part of their funds when the banks do a restructuring using their customer's deposits...


Game over will be within the current week, if the ECB does not provide further liquidity ASAP.

Nach meiner Erfahrung sind bei wahllos verteilten Flyern selbst 5% Rücklauf-Quote extrem optimistisch. Wenn ihr was machen wollt, macht einen Informationsstand und gebt einzelne Flyer an echte Interessenten raus. Das ist günstiger und bringt mehr.

Wenn ihr auf die noch nicht interessierte Masse abzielt, sind Online-Aktivitäten viel effektiver. Macht einfach Bitcoin-Namedropping in diversen Nicht-Bitcoin Foren (wenn es sich thematisch einflechten lässt), die Leute die das lesen und sich interessieren, können dann direkt nach Bitcoin suchen...


Bitte vorher Bescheid geben, wo ihr die Karten verteilt, dann komme ich und durchsuche die Mülleimer...