Assuming that at some point it will be adopted by every person on every corner of the planet, I would say we are still in the very early stages.

Tried mining. Found converting $ was quicker.

OK, am moving assets to Tradehill as well. Better to diversify in case one market is down. (And take advantage of arbitrage opportunities).

It seems to me you've found a money making opportunity. If there's no good way to convert bitcoin to rand, perhaps you should be the guy to do it. Instead of mining, you could be collecting up all the bitcoins throughout SA in exchange for depreciating currency and a nominal transaction fee. With a little marketing you could be rich before Friday. If you didn't want to hold the coins, you could at least send them to Mt Gox and convert them into the currency of your choice.

Can't you set up a US dollar (or Euro) account in South Africa for receiving dollar transfers and do the currency conversion at the bank?

B.

Apparently http://bitoption.org is a futures market, albeit a nascent one. Good to know.

State enforces control... People go to another state. Easy. Take your bitcoins with you. Oh, and don't be the last one out.

What's needed first is a futures market to hedge and/or dampen the volatility. Then we need an index to measure the volatility.

It's great to see demand for bitcoins growing and overwhelming the available infrastructure. That means higher prices ahead and more business opportunities that need to be created.

well said.

You seem to be missing a category for "I convert other currency into bitcoins through an exchange".

Isn't it great? So many opportunities to create a business to add real value to a growing community.

Mt. Gox is by far the largest market. What else would you use at this point?

There are ways around this. You could buy the rigs and have them hosted at Rackspace or equivalent.

I don't think the govt would arrest you for accepting bitcoins, at least not only you.

They would come out and say that bitcoins are now illegal, and stop it for everyone (as if they could), rather than singling you out of the blue for arrest.

However, they could go after you specifically if they had some vendetta against you, but they would go after tax fraud, i.e., that you hadn't adequately accounted for your capital gains, or you could be audited into oblivion.

They arrested the liberty dollar guy because his coins had visual similarities to US currency. I think they said "In God we trust" or something on them. Bitcoins definately don't have this problem. But accepting an alternative currency in and of itself is not illegal. but they might be able to dig up just about anything else if that's their intention, as previously noted.

I'm just a newbie, but I thought I remember seeing something about dark pools. If you are going to dump 9.5K bitcoins, wouldn't you use a dark pool so you didn't crash the market. It's doesn't help the seller that his coins are selling for smaller and smaller amounts.

Also, if you are concerned about holding coins during a crash, is there a way to put in the equivalent of a stop loss order with the exchanges? I.e., get me out asap if the price falls under $X. So you don't wake up and see you've lost 50%.

Plus, any seasoned trader knows that if you know there is going to be volatility, you can make money. Make volatility your friend. Put in lowball "bids" and amass coins at the bottom of the range. Larger orders at increasingly lower, and potentially ridiculous bids.

I originally thought 50 posts was cool and a reasonable hurdle, but after 10 or so highly relevant and value added posts, I'm exhausted. I'm thinking 20 posts might be better.

I actually think the time between posts could be increased to more like 5, along with a reduction down from 50. If you can crank out a post a minute, you know they are garbage anyway.

Anyone that doesn't like the newbie restriction should go create their own forum without the restriction and gather up all the newbie users that don't like this one. Sounds like a viable business opportunity to me that doesn't involve buying a bunch of rigs.

Isn't that the idea?

Market manipulation is tricky and rewarded economically. You have to assume that's going on in any currency, as painful as it makes it for those that need to rely on less volatility. Plan accordingly.

The simple answer to why a vendor would want to accept bitcoins is that any vendor that can offer flexibility to his clients will get more business.

The second factor is that dollars are going down in value, and bitcoins are going up AND down. At some point they may just go up, but you have to take what you can get now. So vendors that amass bitcoins will generally fare better.

However, there is the important principle that "bad money drives out good". That's why people hoard silver and gold, and spend US dollars. US dollars are bad money, so that's the first thing most consumers will want to get rid of as they decline in value. When inflation sets in, US dollars are going to be flying around while other stable currencies go underground and appreciate. Vendors won't be able to get their hands on them until they are the only things that still represent value.