I'd like to have your opinions on when the bubble will burst.

My take is that a Ponzi operator shuts down and disappears with the money as soon as he feels that his money mountain is no longer growing fast or even begins to shrink. The latter happens when more money is withdrawn than new money is coming in.

As long as nobody withdraws, the scheme can run forever, but of course some people always withdraw, for various reasons, the most obvious being that they slowly realize that the Ponzi operator claims to have more than, say, 10 million bitcoins, while only 8 or 9 million bitcoins exist.

Assuming he has 100,000 BTC now, that would happen after a bit more than one year (at 7% a week = 3,300% a year), but then nobody believes that he can possibly get all existing bitcoins, so the ultimate time limit is probably less than a year, give or take a few months. Or would you believe than any single Ponzi scheme can hold 3 million BTC in 2012 or 2013?

Trouble is, if the "investors" get the outrageous idea to switch on their brains, they might withdraw much earlier, namely when they realize that only the first few will get their stash back with interest, while all latecomers will lose everything they "invested".

I think the time until it happens is a bit difficult to guess, but with all the obvious information and explanation out in the open right here, I think it can't be long.

So let's think about how many new "investors" he may be getting. I would say that, if all new "investors" read this thread first, he would get none. This would mean that the Ponzi scheme will shut down later this week. But then one should never underestimate stupidity.

7% per week equal approximately 3,300% per year.

The exponential curve.

I think the thread subject is odd. Ponzi scheme operators do not default. They take the money and disappear.

The effect will not be very strong, because he will not suddenly sell off all the bitcoins. He has done that already for the most part. There will be some loss of trust in bitcoin whenever a bigger Ponzi scheme bursts, but I don't think this will kill bitcoin.

It will be a catastrophe only for any idiots who put their pension savings into a Ponzi scheme.

An interesting question is when a Ponzi scheme bursts. The Ponzi operator takes new "investments" and has to pay out those who withdraw bitcoins. Pretty obviously the operator will shut down the scheme when the payouts outweigh the new "investments", i.e. when his take is at the maximum.

This depends a lot on the trust and belief of his followers. As long as he can convince enough people that he will keep and multiply their money, they will hand it over to him. How anybody in his right mind can possibly believe in interest payments of several percent PER WEEK escapes me. But then we all know that the two most prevalent elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

Interesting thought, but the explanation may be that the defenders of the Ponzi scheme do not even calculate that far. They simply defend the thing they believe in. And they believe in it, because they wish it so much to succeed.

In other words, much simpler psychology explains it. People tend to defend their past decisions, even if they show signs of failure. The wish overpowers their rational thinking (for those who have the capacity of rational thinking in the first place).

Don't think for a moment that the governments of this world will allow bitcoin to deprive them of their ability to defraud their peoples.

At the moment, bitcoin is a fringe phenomenon. When it begins to bite, governments will bite back.

Our hope is that bitcoin technology will make it impossible for governments to eradicate it. Some genies just cannot be put back into the bottle.

Na ja, ich schon. Ich halte den Vortrag. Ist übrigens auf den 26. Juli verschoben wegen Fußballs.

Es ist geschlossene Gesellschaft, leider.

Hans-Georg

Ich auch, obwohl ich von diesem Schnupfen fast völlig benebelt war. Hoffentlich hat sich niemand angesteckt, aber vielleicht ist das ja gut fürs Immunsystem.

Da werde ich in Kenia sein: http://michna.com/kenya2012/

I thought the same, but bitcoin is still new and has to cater to today's needs.

By the way, a good bank account management system does this. The Swiss are quite good at it. Choose your desired currency, and everything can be converted on your statements, at least on the electronic ones.

While this is true in theory, smartphones can still not be regarded entirely secure by design. On many Android phones it is easy to obtain root access, which breaks all security, if the user can be tricked into allowing it. Malware could and will go that way.

My recommendation is either to use a cheap, old smartphone with only BitcoinSpinner and a few other trusted programs on it, or use your normal smartphone, but be extremely hesitant and vigilant when it comes to installing other software.

Für Neulinge: Wenn man noch nie im Loft war, dann findet man es wahrscheinlich auch nicht. Aber ich glaube, im Doodle-Kommentar steht eine Handy-Nummer, die man dann anrufen kann, um sich hereinholen zu lassen.

Ich will hier jetzt keine genaue Wegbeschreibung öffentlich aushängen, weil das vielleicht auch ganz unerwünschte Gestalten anlocken könnte. Zutritt nur nach Gesichtskontrolle. 

Die Adresse ist jedenfalls Friedenstr. 10, 81671 München.

In my view the current system is very bad. It is unnecessary and it deflects the most valuable contributors, namely those that also have other important things to do instead of wasting their time in this childish way.

But I doubt that any amount of opinion here will change it. One of the most prominent features of the human mind is its strong inclination to force rules on others, no matter how idiotic they are. Add self-overestimation, righteousness, and simple stupidity, and you arrive at what the world looks like, this forum included.

The world is a madhouse. I am trying to look for the few small islands of sense. The bitcoin market itself may be one of them, after the initial stupidity has eliminated itself from it by giving its money away to the more sensible traders.

But you don't need these restrictions to prevent spam. Look at one of my web sites, http://winhlp.com/ . It does not have any trace of spam.

The method is twofold. First you have to register, which requires passing a little IQ test, easy enough for a 7-year-old, but too difficult for most Chinese spammers. Only a few get through this test. Without registration you cannot post, just like here.

Second, you cannot easily post anything that contains links, which is all the spammers want. There are several good ways to allow links for reliable users, but disallow them for new users.

Ah, inzwischen ist der 25.4. sowieso schon die einsame Spitze mit 7 Anmeldungen.

Hier nochmal der Doodle-Link: http://www.doodle.com/54ik349e8m9m7y37

Nachdem der 10. und der 25. April mit jeweils 6 Anmeldungen im Doodle gleichwertig waren, könnten wir aus heutiger Sicht leicht den 25. festlegen.

Falls sich diese Woche dann doch noch ein anderer Termin an die Spitze emporkämpfen sollte, könnten wir den auch nehmen.

Es wäre aber angenehm, wenn wir uns schon einige Tage vorher auf einen Termin festlegen könnten. Manche Leute wollen oder müssen ein wenig vorausplanen.

Bis jetzt gab es keine Bestätigung für diesen Termin. Weiß jemand etwas?

While a QR code is a nice solution, a slightly more convenient alternative would be an NFC chip. You would only briefly have to hold the phone over the pocket where the chip is. The QR code would still work fine with older phones.

Why exactly do you want it to work on the old Android version? Perhaps you could update Android instead, which may anyway be the better way to go. Which type of phone is it? Have you checked http://cyanogenmod.com/ and other Android branches for support of this particular type of phone?

Given that this problem will disappear in very few years on its own, I have some understanding for not wanting to put extra effort into it.

Was war's denn? Ein Fehler im BitcoinSpinner?

Leider ist auch das nicht ohne Risiko. Wahrscheinlich wissen das alle, aber ich sag's nochmal. Genau so, wie Bitcoins in beliebig kurzer Zeit um 1000% oder mehr zulegen können, so können sie auch schlagartig ihren Wert weitgehend oder völlig verlieren.

Aber im Moment sind wir doch erst mal gespannt, ob unsere lieben Bitcoins sich tatsächlich in der Gegend von $5 gefangen haben oder ob sie nochmal eine Stufe nach unten fallen.

Mein Ausblick wird allmählich positiver. Ich halte es mittlerweile für möglich, dass der Bodensatz von realer Bitcoin-Nutzung, gemeinsam mit einem gewissen allgemeinen Optimismus, den jetzigen Preis tatsächlich auf längere Zeit tragen kann. In ein paar Monaten wissen wir mehr.

Immerhin glauben nur noch wenige, dass der Preis demnächst anhaltend unter $2 sinken wird. Das ist doch schon mal was.