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1621
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [POLL] Should we ban something on the Bitcoin marketplace?
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on: February 19, 2011, 03:53:31 PM
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In principle I don't advocate for banning anything, however I have serious concerns about advertising contraband on this forum.
By doing so, you paint a target on the exchangers.
Too few of you understand what exchangers have already been through. It was police action over gambling that caused every exchanger in the USA to quit or flee.
What is the FBI and RCMP going to do now that some of you have openly advertised sale of drugs by mail? Gambling got exchange people imprisoned, exiled and even murdered. What is police reaction going to be now, offering illegal drugs for sale and naming exchangers in the same posts?
In the past few weeks I've noticed links to illicit offers in my referrer logs. In all my years of working as cashier to the internet I've never seen such blatant disregard for the principles of discretion.
The men who run the bitcoin markets and the exchange services are not anonymous ghosts. We are real people in meat space with reams of law to obey, ID documents, bank accounts, offices and licenses. We can very easily be tapped by the lawmen.
Do you jokers really think exchangers will work for you when you have such little regard for their liberty?
Shut the hell up already.
Very good point, i didn't think of it this way. So trading illegals also introduces extra risk of police intervention among exchangers ? Interesting, indeed. However, do you have any links to support this ? I would like to read more. |
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1622
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: bubble imminent
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on: February 19, 2011, 03:50:57 PM
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In the bitcoin world, right now $10,000 is quite a lot. So if this is the case, that is just a few players with 10k are buying, selling then the reaason for the large swings is that the market is relatively small.
I agree. It also makes me wonder whether this is a possible attack vector against the market at this stage. A relatively small sum of money can be used to introduce significant instability into the market. Probably not very efficient though, I guess over time speculators would catch on and start to anticipate the up- and downspikes. Indeed. As long as there will be influx of new people/services/currencies for trading, there is no chance of such strategy to ever work. The price will be instable, but still rising, which is the whole point. Everybody wants tomorrow's bread to be cheaper that today's bread - this is the reason Bitcoin was created in first place - to avoid government thievery by inflation. |
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1623
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Official Bitcoin Unicode Character?
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on: February 18, 2011, 04:44:25 PM
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I'm going to toss my vote in for Ⓑ
Since it really does look like the logo.
I vote for that as well. I really like the logo as it quickly makes it clear what bitcoin is all about. It communicates the idea of money quickly and easily, without the need for wordy explanations. The Ⓑ recalls the logo, and so would become easily recognizable as the bitcoin symbol. +1 Let's sum it up: 1) Ⓑ is not like any other currency, so perhaps it should have a different symbol unlike dollar $ / euro € which have lines through the letter. 2) Ⓑ resembles a "coin" 3) Ⓑ looks like the logo (as already said) 4) Ⓑ ?? ?? 5) Ⓑ PROFIT !!  |
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1625
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [POLL] Should we ban something on the Bitcoin marketplace?
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on: February 18, 2011, 01:39:37 PM
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It won't take long before ... some "authorities" will start bugging our asses about it.
I think it's likely that the authorities will bug people's asses much harder about the monetary aspects of bitcoin than the illicit substances aspect. Still, the less bugging, the better for us. It's a better strategy to avoid confrontation to get more strength and battle later. Every single day, Bitcoin is getting more and more powerful. At some point in the future, it will be not only unstoppable, but it won't even be possible to slow it down. ---- EDIT:Also, every single day, fiat currencies are getting weaker, so delaying confrontation is a winning strategy for Bitcoin. |
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1626
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Economy / Economics / Re: Mises on BitCoin
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on: February 18, 2011, 12:55:14 PM
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... or most governments worldwide declare a War on Bitcoins Exchangers. In my experience, making something illegal exponentially increases it's value. Should the US gov make btc illegal, I will immediately transfer as much assets into it as possible. They just made it the de facto currency of the black market. Still, you won't pay for your groceries in Bitcoin then, so mainstream adoption can be severely slowed down. |
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1627
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [POLL] Should we ban something on the Bitcoin marketplace?
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on: February 18, 2011, 12:46:31 PM
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With this change in demographic, it's natural that the marginalized elements of the bitcoin economy will drift off to other forums, for their own interests rather than because they are pushed out.
For now, I think every aspect of the bitcoin economy should be welcomed here. Very soon, each subculture will create or find its own niche anyway, so the "problem" is self-correcting.
Well i hope you're right since we already have a Marijuana sale thread in the "Market". It won't take long before new threads will start appearing, and then some "authorities" will start bugging our asses about it. Not to repeat myself too much, but I still think the entire trade forum will need to go away sooner or later. Maybe now's the time to figure out a better place for trade announcements?
Agreed. I also think this may happen. |
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1629
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [POLL] Should we ban something on the Bitcoin marketplace?
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on: February 18, 2011, 01:07:30 AM
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I know a few people that were interested by the bitcoin stuff and, after visiting this forum, told me that "hey, this is just a project for junkie and anarchist retards that hope to defeat the governement".
So, yes, the current forum has already turned away 2 people I know.
And when I first read the "Heroin thread", I nearly gave up completely for the whole bitcoin thing.
I find this forum definitely not friendly in that regard and I believe that Bitcoin reputation is already suffering because of this.
+1 ++20 This is exactly what i was walking about when i argued that allowing of trade of such materials is bad for Bitcoin's publicity. We - anarchist/minarchist/libertarian types don't have any problem with freedom of speech & freedom of trade. But most of "normal people", when they see something like "heroin store", they just run away and don't look back. So selling stuff like drugs/arms/other illegals on this forum will be viewed by general population as proof that "Bitcoin was created for evil" or some other bullshit. This makes it extremely easy for governments to delegalise it, and kill mainstream adoption for next few years/decades. How is possible to fight government while simultaneously putting weapons into his hands ? As i said before, this is a childish strategy (which is no strategy at all actually). |
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1631
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Economy / Economics / Re: Mises on BitCoin
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on: February 18, 2011, 12:08:59 AM
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That won't make everyone else accept the change. No one who already has BTC will want it to go down in value. It makes no difference what people want, it will be coded into the system at that point. It's the same as the Fed. Res. printing money. As of now there is no mechanism to force people to upgrade to a newer, less desirable version of Bitcoin. the scenario you describe would require that people controlling over 50% of the network computing power adopt the newer, different software. As far as i understand, controlling >50% of the network would only allow some double-spending attacks. However if you want to print money, there is technically no possibility of enforcing "government-controlled version of Bitcoin" on everybody. For example, if you make 60% of the network accept new type of blocks, which will allow printing more money, then the remaining 40% of the network will completely reject these blocks, which effectively will make Bitcoin split into 2 networks: the "new" one which is government - controlled, and the "classic" one. Of course, people will choose the "classic" network (nobody want's his money to be stolen by government), and the whole operation will fail. Unless of course govs make that illegal, and Bitcoin will go underground. |
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1632
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Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Maximum number of bitcoins
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on: February 17, 2011, 02:06:54 PM
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True fractional reserve banking requires ... loaning out the same money twice or more.
Sure you can do that with bitcoins. Imagine if MtGox went into the lending business. They lend money to someone, and suddenly that person's MtGox balance shows some bitcoins, without MtGox needing to accept any more Bitcoin deposits. If everyone who borrowed money from MtGox withdrew their money, that would cause a run. But if borrowers just used it as a "bank account" for paying to other MtGox accountholders, there would be no run. With any kind of fractional reserve banking, if there is a run someone loses out. If MtGox went into the fractional reserve loans business and suffered a run, the losses would be borne by MtGox or by its creditors or by its depositors. When a bank suffers a run, the losses are borne by the bank's shareholders, or by its creditors or depositors, or by the taxpayer. I think i see few problems with running a fractional reserve bank with bitcoin: 1. In the internet era information flows very quickly, so the probability of a bank run is high if people start to suspect something. 1a. It's too easy to call the bluff with bitcoin. If people want to take their funds out of the bank, they can do it instantenously. Much easier than with gold. So it is bank run is even more likely. 2. To run a fractional reserve bank in any country of the world, you need to cooperate with local authorities or you will be closed down. And since authorities will not understand what Bitcoin is, there may be problems. 2a. The central bank would have to have reserves of Bitcoin for fractional - Bitcoin based system to work.... Nah, too complicated, not likely to happen in the closest future. |
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1633
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: bubble imminent
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on: February 17, 2011, 01:59:11 PM
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because it means people are hoarding.
If they will be hoarding for a long time then the effect will be exactly the same as if there were less bitcoins on the market (less goods -> prices rise). However, now if a major player (or mass of minor players) comes to the market wanting to buy a large amount of Bitcoins, the price would totally skyrocket (5x-10x or more). |
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1635
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: DAE think drugs, porn and gambling w/ BTC should discouraged?
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on: February 17, 2011, 12:43:46 PM
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most people don't use forums either, or even know what one is.
Yes, but this are mostly the same people who do not know what internet is. If you are using internet, sooner or later you are going to stumble upon a forum. i wish this was true, sadly most people stay within the comfort zone of facebook and youtube. in class we had to say our hobbies and a boy said he liked going on forums, the whole class was like, forums, what are they??? (and this is in the uk, i think we have one of the highest number of computer users in the world) Forums seem to be a matter of finding one that makes you stick. I've seen plenty of examples of people who didn't know what forums were signing up for "this thing at the website" that let them talk to others about a topic they are all interested in. Those who are interested in bitcoins as a concept will find this place and read, and those who want to use them, won't. That's right. They may be using a forum not even knowing that it is called "a forum". BTW, Facebook & Youtube have forum systems of their own - comments is kind of a forum (but simplified) too after all. |
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1640
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Ignite! Amherst talk about Bitcoin
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on: February 16, 2011, 06:36:34 PM
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Good stuff. This video should be on the front page of bitcoin.org.
This is definately the best video about bitcoin that has been made so far. It should be posted on the frontpage as explanation, used as an advertisement and posted to YouTube (of course). |
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