But that's just it... from the chart you posted, it looks as if the downtrend has flatlined. Stability makes for a good store of value (even if just for the time being,) and since the price appears to have bottomed, that makes it the best time to buy from an investment perspective.

I don't see why a flatlined price would indicate a further drop or another crash any more than a renewed increase or new bubble, but I guess if that's your analysis it makes sense to wait it out.

Personally, I'm taking the same stance I do with precious metals: yeah, it may take another hit sometime soon... but as precarious as the global economy is right now, what if instead the price takes off and I'm not properly invested yet? At that point, wouldn't it be better to have bought at $3, missed the dip to $2, but have held through to the surge, than to have not bought at $3, expected a dip to $2 to that never came, and to have missed the surge entirely?

Good point. I've just tried out bitmunchies, and hope to give a few of the other bitcoin businesses that can fill a need of mine a try.

I don't think it's a good idea.

There's an issue more important than who the money goes to. The money can go to a non-profit org, can be split among the core developers, whatever... each proposition has it's own pluses and minuses.

But the tricky question is, who owns the address the client lets you send money to? I'm of the mindset that each bitcoin address, for a number of reasons, needs to be owned by exactly one person or entity (corporation, whatever), for all time.

If a literal, formal organization was created, say The Satoshi Bitcoin Client Corp, with some specific person or group of people that had ultimate control over the organization, and this organization was the official owner of the address, I could possibly see it. As it stands now, it appears as if the community is trying to create some sort of "public property" donation address, and I just don't like how that's going to wind up working out.

I see one possible reason mining should be somewhat simple to activate for the casual user: network strengthening.

Not only will it bump up the strength of the network slightly (even if the average casual user only leaves it on for a few hours a week) without requiring a price increase, it'll also allow those who follow bitcoin news to be able to actively contribute to defending against a network attack. If there's a sudden noteworthy increase in hashing power, but the new player seems malicious, the ability to quickly mobilize a little extra hashing power might be useful.

As far as how to best implement that? Meh, I probably wouldn't bother if it wasn't just some menu option in the client itself, but I can also see the downside of affixing another rarely-used chunk of code to it.

Hmm.

Had you just said "Using bitcoin to store wealth is silly," I would understand your perspective.

At what point will it switch from being a bad idea to store wealth in bitcoin to being a good idea? What critical point do you think needs to be reached?

Price drives difficulty; the reverse happening is merely an illusion.



The idea that the price automatically rises, at all, during a high-difficulty low-price situation, or falls during the reverse situation, is faulty.

As the price falls relative to difficulty (a "high-difficulty" situation) so that the price is too low for miners to profit, miners stop mining and the difficulty drops. If the price rises relative to difficulty so that mining is more profitable, more miners jump in and difficulty rises. Difficulty adjusts itself to price as miners leave/enter the business.

But note, as long as his demand for bitcoins remains the same, a miner won't impact the price at all by shutting off his rig and buying instead. Similarly, as long as his demand for bitcoins remains the same, a buyer won't impact the price at all by choosing instead to mine with enough power to satisfy his demand.

I have nephews who will be getting "bitcoin savings accounts" from me for Christmas, by way of wallets burned to CD and colorful address cards from paymyaddress.com. I imagine that I'll be dropping in a minimum of $20/month (total) to their accounts every month for the next 10 years. It's not much, but it's meant to be an example more than me actually trying to provide for other people's kids.

By then, especially if their parents also contribute (it may take a few years to get them to that point) they should be able to pay for whatever modernized job training that should have replaced the bloated, overpriced secondary education ripoff we currently have.

For myself, I'm saving regularly also... under $100 though (hey, precious metals are also nice....)

The fix seems to have taken care of the issue on my phone.

That just means we can still get it at a relatively reasonable price. Seems clear we're doomed to see USD (and likely Euro) hyperinflation, at which point precious metals will become extremely valuable.

And I agree, one could also anticipate a sharp rise in demand for bitcoins as the global fiat monetary system finally implodes (Ann Barnhardt's recent interview points out the increasing likelihood of this)... people will still want to transact electronically, but the infrastructure for things like egold keeps getting attacked by the feds, leaving bitcoin as the most robust alternative.

This made me realize one of bitcoin's advantages over other asset classes: it's the most liquid. Up until now I'd not really considered it too seriously as a store of wealth (volatility, newness, etc.) but I might rethink that because of the incredibly high liquidity... in a sense, bitcoin is liquidity made manifest. It beats precious metals, as you don't have to physically meet with the other party to deliver it. Even cash is usually trapped in a bank, subject to some degree to their whims.

And as outlets for exchange and use increase, it only gets better. Hmm.

I think I'll be upping my %.

I'm going to be using this phrase.

For the record...

I'd noticed I've been having some issues like this with my Android smartphone as well. I emailed the owner of StrongCoin about it, and he acknowledged that he is hosting (on a cloud server) with the company named on the mismatched certificate I saw. Apparently they use a newer SSL protocol which tries to handle non-fixed IP addresses but can be quirky with some browsers. I can see how smartphone browsers would be the ones that don't quite mesh well with it.

I tried Firefox for Android and had no issues.

Digital copper?

I'm not invested in this setup... the types may not be all that descriptive. Also, I'm not knowledgeable enough to know much more than to check out Google or Wikipedia for my own reading.

But surely you acknowledge that general personality categories do exist, right?

Meh, all depends on who's doing the reporting. Gerald Celente (I admit, he's disturbingly socialist for my taste) walked around OWS with a camera and didn't seem to find it dirty. Other non-MSM sources report similarly.

I think I know where you're coming from, and I'm not gung-ho about the entire thing either, but you might want to check out some of the more objective (read: NOT rah-rah-OWS) videos on Youtube. Maybe start with user sgtbull07, then check out whatever related ones you like.

Even the participants who are disagreeable are pretty instructive... for example, I'm pretty dismayed by the people (vocal, but hopefully few in number) who literally just want the government to print money for all, not understanding the implications. But I've known about economic basics for so long I guess I forget it is not universal knowledge.

Well, if personality analysis is useful, how is it a crutch? I don't think anyone here lives their entire life trying to following their Jungian/whatever expectations, or rigidly expecting others to consistently follow theirs. (Let's hope not, at least.)

And I think at times there's no reason to NOT recognize the categories people fall into. If I decide to sell chocolate, there's no point in refusing to acknowledge that everyone is, exclusively, either (1) someone who loves chocolate, (2) someone who hates chocolate, (3) someone who has no strong feelings either way, or (4) someone who's never tried chocolate. Everyone's either a L, H, N or X.

I'm not choosing to categorize people that way, I'm just recognizing and admitting that those categories already exist in reality. (But of course, it's how we react to the categorization that can cause problems.)

INTJ

89% - 75% - 88% - 78%

Not that I'm that familiar with this, but it seems like it'll be an interesting read.

Yep.

Well, the kiddos will get a couple more dropped into bitcoin "savings accounts," with nifty address cards for adding more later.

I think some sort of background imagery would help. Perhaps a faded picture of a pile of bullion, or maybe you can create a theme for the product and have a different pic on each denomination... since these are paper, perhaps the 1btc note could show a nursery of pine saplings, the 100btc note could show a single majestic oak, etc.

Leaving just the bitcoin symbol by itself is just a little too simple, imho.

StrongCoin lets you do it quickly and securely.