In addition to the above, several people above have mentioned localbitcoins. They seem to be active in Thailand, though it looks like you'd need to do a bank transfer (unless you met the seller face-to-face). I've had good results (in the UK) with localbitcoins and bank transfers, but obviously my experience in the UK may differ from yours in Thailand!

One issue people tend to have with localbitcoins (apart from the assumption that you can only trade face-to-face) is the wide price variation - right now I'm seeing anything from 18900 to 26800 THB per BTC. My advice here is to be patient and consider buying several small amounts instead of one large amount - which is probably good advice in general, since it spreads any counterparty risk. It might not suit your needs, though.

Edit: and, of course, Newar said exactly the same far more succintly and earlier Ignore me, I'm a slow reader!

Wow - thanks! That's a really recent change at well. Well, glad it makes sense now. Wednesday close is just bizarre.

Bitcoinwisdom offers local time as an option so it's possible you might see someone posting an image that hasn't used UTC - but UTC is the default. Bitcoincharts is just UTC. No idea about Tradingview, sorry!

What is it that seems off? I really just use Bitcoinwisdom, with an occasional foray into Bitcoincharts when I want to see really historic (i.e. MtGox, "back in the day") data...

Why do you think it closes on Wednesday? That's at least the second time someone's said that recently...

I'm sceptical. Go to Bitcoinwisdom's weekly chart and hover over this week's bar - the date (the start date) is shown, and for the current week it's shown as 2014-07-28 - last Sunday.

Sunday night I think. On bitcoinwisdom the previous week's red candle shows a start date of 21st July (and the current one is 28th July). Midnight (UTC) on Sunday makes sense, anyway.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zl - this is "all data" for MtGox (so ignore everything after the last peak - MtGox is no more. It has ceased to be...)

There are peaks (not necessarily All Time Highs) roughly every 6-9 months (November 2010, June 2011, January 2012, August 2012, April 2013, December 2013), which I guess someone felt was justification for the 234 days theory.

That's a fair point - I guess most of us take it for granted that people will know this stuff and that a visual representation will be obviously helpful. Anyway, from the top...

The rationale is that BTC are generated at a fairly constant rate (every time a block is found by a miner, roughly every 10 minutes), but that the number of BTC generated is reduced periodically - every 210,000 blocks, or roughly every four years. When Bitcoin was first released miners were rewarded 50 BTC with every block they found. That changed towards the end of 2012, with a reduction down to 25 BTC. Right now I'd expect the next change - to 12.5 BTC - to occur in late 2016, but since we can follow the block count, we'll know as time goes on whether that's a bad guess or not. (Rather than worry about dates, simply check the block count as it approaches 420,000).

Whether that's useful or not is up for debate! Instinctively I think it is, because I think that the rate of increase of supply of BTC will affect the price. But that's just my opinion. If nothing else, these charts show visually what several dense and text-heavy wiki pages say - and pictures are worth a thousand words

I honestly don't know - it's never happened to me! I think businesses tend to be pragmatic - money's money, so as long as they can check it's not counterfeit then they're usually willing to accept it. The problem tends to be the other way round, using Scottish notes in England - though even that I've not found to be much of a problem recently.

Probably - Scottish (and Northern Irish) notes seem to me to be, in effect, IOUs for Bank of England notes. My understanding was that "legal tender" applied to debts, so if I have a meal in a restaurant and settle up afterwards - the restaurant can't refuse my payment if I offer legal tender (obviously restaurants in Scotland are more concerned with receiving payment in any form than with the legal niceties ). I don't know at what point my Council Tax obligations become a "debt" - when I've paid in cash I've been paying in advance - but it's certainly a duty or obligation (or, at least, regarded as such by our city fathers...)

Local authorities ("councils") collect "Council Tax" to pay for local services; they accept Scottish notes (and, presumably, though I've never tested it, Bank of England notes).

The Scottish Government has (limited - a few percentage points above the UK-wide tax rate) tax-raising powers, though to date hasn't exercised that power.

...and, there are even countries where legal tender doesn't really exist. In Scotland, for example, coins are legal tender (limited amounts in most cases, but £1 and £2 coins are valid for any amount), but no bank notes have been legal tender since 1946 (Scottish bank notes, and Bank of England 10 shilling and £1 notes). There are current Scottish bank notes (issues by three commercial banks), and Bank of England notes are widely used - but none are legal tender.

I'm not sure what the situation is in Northern Ireland, but I gather it's similar - Northern Irish banks also issue their own notes, though I don't know if they're legal tender there or not.

(For the sake of completeness I should add that Bank of England notes are legal tender in England and Wales, and accepted in Scotland without question - since they enjoy the same non-legal tender status as their Scottish equivalents).

Ah, interesting (makes mental note to google Çatal Höyök). You could well be right about Russia; I don't know how strong the anarchists were before the October Revolution, but they were certainly present afterwards - "Nabat" (Russian anarchists) supported the Ukrainian anarchists against the Axis powers, the local aristocracy, and against their "own" Red Army.

Ukraine's experiment with anarchism was largely rural (and has been cited by Marxists ever since to downplay the idea that anarchism can thrive in an urban setting), but Spain - Catalonia in particular, where anarchists and syndicalists ran the region - runs counter to Marxist histories. Barcelona (Spain's second city, I think?) was controlled by anarchists from the outbreak of the Civil War until the Spanish Communists turned on their onetime allies, forcing them into exile and underground.

Thinking about it, I seem to recall something about anarchism in South America being far bigger than European/North American history gives it credit for, and that it was (is?) largely urban. Another task for google...

(Geez - the stuff I think about while watching a line wiggle up and down by a tiny fraction...)

Has anarchism ever degenerated into totalitarian rule? The two examples of anarchist societies I can think of were toppled by external forces - by the Red Army in the Ukraine, and by the Spanish Communist Party and it's allies in Spain. Apologies if that was your point, it just seemed you were suggesting degeneration was a result of anarchism itself, rather than its opponents.

Are they still open to CNH? If so, that would be my guess - traders with CNH in Hong Kong or London.

Ahem! Hover your mouse over Coinbase's photo of Juan Zarate.

I guess I agree intuitively with the premise that alt coins are more risky, and not a sound hedge. If I wanted a short term hedge (eg. I held a long position in BTC and was concerned that BTC would fall relative to fiat) I'd use a call option (for example).

But, honestly, I'm bullish (and lazy!) and believe BTC will do just fine in the long term (I'm a hodler, not a trader, obviously).

Montenegro and Kosovo both unilaterally adopted the Euro in 2002; neither are EU members at present. For that matter, the Eurozone countries have given up their authority to regulate their own currency - though I suppose it's possible to argue that the decisions weren't necessarily made willingly.

Currency substitution is fairly common, particularly with the US dollar. There are less cases of full currency substitution (full legal tender, no domestic bank notes), but they do exist - mostly in Central and South America and the Pacific. The Caribbean Netherlands adopted USD in 2010 or 2011 IIRC, and Panama has used USD since the early 20th century (though I believe they use their own coins).

We shouldn't! All it tells us is that - at a certain point in time - X transacted with Y and the outcome was satisfactory (according to X and Y).  All this represents is part of the process by which you establish whether X or Y can be trusted.

As an example, I transacted with another forum member several years ago, and we both posted here upon successful completion. But - since then I could have "gone rogue". And, of course, it could have been a scam by both of us to convince people we were both trustworthy!

Personally, I think this thread is useful (and was probably more useful in the past - it doesn't seem to be updated that much anymore), but shouldn't be the only tool you use in establishing trust.

Hmmm. I'm also in the UK, and in my experience people tend to say "500 mils" where I'd maybe expect them to say "half a litre". A can of Coke is straightforward (there's usually only one thing "can" can mean); bottles less so - is it a 500ml bottle, a 1 litre or a 2 litre bottle? I guess that's why people specify the volume. When it's something like wine we never specify the volume - a bottle is a bottle (albeit one that contains 750ml).

With carpentry, I was taught to measure in millimetres and it's metric when I buy stuff at B&Q but I take your point about 2x4s - it's become genericised, the actual measurements are metric but we continue to use the old naming convention,

You're right that people don't tend to talk about using 120ml of milk, but that's what most recipes use - we just don't tend to talk about our kitchen adventures that much! "Cups" tends to be used when people are following US or older British recipes. (I find "cups" a PITA because all my mugs/cups are different sizes, and I'm a bad enough cook at the best of times without allowing imprecise volume to interfere with my culinary expertise. I usually google the metric equivalent when faced with cups).

That said, there's a strong tendency in the UK to resist metric - beer is still sold in pints (instead of the mighty 600ml "pints" our cousins down under get to enjoy) and speed limits are still set in MPH instead of KM/H. And over the past few years it's become increasingly hard to find litres of milk in supermarkets. Silly supermarkets - pints are for beer (Ideally 600ml pints...)

Ah, understood. Yes, volatility can't be removed entirely or price wouldn't move (or - more likely - the market maker would go bust).