I'm not talking about spending as in the bare necessities like hookers & blow, i meant spending which could be avoided -- lending for profit, investing, "spending money to make money," the boring stuff. I simply don't see how molecular believes that Bitcoin is bound to disperse wealth. (Bitcoin: Champion of the poor.) If anything, once you discount extremes (one person owns every bitcoin), nothing encourages spending like inflation  I believe the reasoning is that it would remove unfair advantages and wealth distribution to big banks (special loan conditions, cantillon effect etc.), plus the fact that middle-class families tend to have a larger percentage of their savings in inflation-sensitive fiat, whereas rich people can more easily diversify in the housing market, etc. . |
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What is most troubling is the widespread belief that human nature is malleable; that somehow once people who have adopted bitcoin get to run the show that it will be any different. I am the first person to complain about the excesses of the current establishment and the widespread systemic problems in nearly every aspect of western (global?) society. However, putting a different group of humans in charge will not drastically change the outcome. History is not linear and despite popular belief, human nature does not progress. 'Science and Technology are cumulative, ethics and politics are recurring dilemmas' (John Gray). This type of thinking isn't exclusive to users of bitcoin, but, unsurprisingly, there seems to be a particularly large contingent of believers in the impending utopia, borne from technological progress.
Bit off topic, but I typically get carried away once I get on my soapbox.
I think you have some excellent points, but it is important to note that we are not just putting 'different people' in charge, we are changing the framework by which money creation and financial transactions occur. I believe changing a framework cān have profound consequences. By the way, theoretically, I would say that human nature does evolve, just very very very slowly, and only after certain "evolutionary incentives" change. |
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Interesting, if they switch to a corporate account then many laws protecting "consumer" accounts don't apply. Also with a corporate account with most banks they can do alot more with the funds, for good and bad.
They don't "switch" to corporate accounts. They never really had proper segregated accounts in the first place. There is exactly one bitcoin exchange that has segregated user accounts (to be perfectly fair it does not appear to be necessary in the US where an MSB license, or a partnership with a registered MSB is sufficient). Good luck with the new exchange ! |
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Potato Technical Analysis TM.  Is this related to Candystick analysis? (the past month, we went through a "Red Twister") |
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Bigger market cap should smooth out the effect on price of influx and outflux of capital, reducing volatility Margin trading will save us! With leverage 100:1 price swings will drop hundredfold, to single percentages. Of course, everybody knows that leverage is key for stability  That's how levers work. Long end swings wildly, while short end hardly moves. On long end, daytraders put billions USD in and out, make and lose their fortunes, while on short end the BTC price hardly moves. Speculators getting volatility and merchants getting stability. Win-win! I'll actually have to think some more about this one, you might be right, but I am not seeing the whole picture/model. |
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I'm kind of new to bitcoin so this may be kind of stupid to ask, how does the prices go up and down isn't there always gonna be the same amout of bitcoins?
There is still some inflation, until the supply reaches just shy of BTC21 million in about 127 years' time. Even with a steady supply, price is determined by demand (bid versus ask volume) at the margins. If bitcoin is truly to gain traction, the long-term trend has to be very bullish of course. But Bitcoin can fail and its price can fall to zero. This. If more people want bitcoins from the fixed amount available, the price will rise. If fewer people want them, the price will drop. |
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Bigger market cap should smooth out the effect on price of influx and outflux of capital, reducing volatility Margin trading will save us! With leverage 100:1 price swings will drop hundredfold, to single percentages. Of course, everybody knows that leverage is key for stability |
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When is the starting point? With the peaks its easy its a fixed day. Y-axis is just a screen-print from bitcoinchart and then the peaks are matched up.
Yeah true, starting point is somewhat arbitrary, but you can see here that the 2013 plateau at start is higher than 2011. Could you post both pictures/layers separately? |
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 When will this relationship end? Why aren't the starting points aligned? Or said otherwise, the peaks are overlapped, but how is the Y-axis determined for both charts? To get the same average price? Just somewhat arbitrary? In my opinion, if you 'stretched out' the 2013 version a bit vertically, you would get better overlap. |
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I think it is because there were more sellers than buyers
No, there are always exactly the same number of sellers and buyers (who would the seller sell to when there is no buyer to buy it from him?). The question is at what price people are willing to sell or buy the coins. At what price would you become a seller, at what price a buyer? |
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It's funny all you fags trying to sway people into buying while we're clearly still in a downwards spiral. There's no reason for bitcoin to go up right now besides speculation, and that has already been done the last few months, too soon for another bubble.
On the other hand, there is no reason for Bitcoin to go down right now, besides speculation. Actually, almost any act of trading, or hoarding anything, can be labeled as "speculation". You're selling bitcoins? Speculator! Buying bitcoins? Speculator! Holding bitcoins? Speculator (you are probably hoping the price would go up). Buying gold? Speculator! Selling bonds? Speculator! Holding dollars? Speculator (by holding dollars, you are betting against gold, Bitcoin, and Chilean peso). The only real way to avoid being called a speculator, is to spend all of your savings right away, and go into debt to buy a new house, or a yacht, or a Ferrari. Now, all of a sudden, you become an honest hard-working person, struggling to repay the debt. Not like all those speculators. Yeah, the subjective difference between an investment and a speculation is both the time you are willing to hold on to it, and the expected volatility, that's about it in my opinion. Plus speculator has a negative connotation, while investor sounds good. It's more about the definition you use or finding the average context in which the words are used than anything else. |
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M-Pesa seems more like a rivaling currency than anything else. It already has millions of transactions daily and growing fast, bitcoin is becoming a gamblers paradise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa. i wonder how high the fees are? Users are charged a small fee for sending and withdrawing money using the service.
The most recent thing I heard though is the government is going to levy a new tax on it or something like that. Indeed, single point of failure much? |
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Low volatility is not a neccesary requirement of a currency. It will take a very long time for Bitcoin to become non-volatile. I suggest you get used to it. It's far better to hold something extremely volatile which is continuously increasing in value than something non-volatile which is decreasing.
A minimum market cap is not neccesary for goals such a Apple accepting Bitcoin. The market cap will automatically adapt to satisfy the new demand.
Investment-wise, I agree with you, but if you are a company that needs to pay its bills (in fiat), and you don't have a fuckload of capital reserves, you don't want to touch something extremely volatile, because you risk going bankrupt. Bigger market cap should smooth out the effect on price of influx and outflux of capital, reducing volatility and resulting in being better suitable for companies. |
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Dropped?
A year ago the high for the day was $6.88 per bitcoin. Today the low so far was $72.5. Sounds like an increase of $65.62 (853.78%) to me.
Perhaps you just meant since the beginning of this year (2013)? Lets see...
Jan.1 the high for the day was $13.56. Nope that's an increase of $58.94 (334.66%).
Maybe you meant the past 24 hours?
24 hours ago the exchange rate was $71.5. At the moment the rate is $78. That's in increase of 9% over 24 hours.
Perhaps you are just choosing an arbitrary time in the past when it just happened to be higher and comparing it to a lower value?
In that case, I'd say it dropped because you chose a time in the past when the exchange rate was higher.
Today's special is "Toast with a slice of Perspective" |
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Those interest rates were a strange blip. It didn't last long. But it was there and strange to see.
No, this is no blip. Interestrates spike in the three- and four digits every other day now. Yes, you read that right, 1000% to 2000% interest on USD on Bitfinex! Normally it drops to "just" 100% to 200% again soon. So, obviously there is quite a demand for USD. How to make that incredible opportunity public? "Hello, yes, more USD, please! Yes, yes, a lot! Yes, insurance is possible!" :-) No, seriously, we need more of that stinkin' papermoney over here. Ente I think a lot of people withdrew their money when the rates were getting low due to low volatility, and they felt that it wasn't worth the risk anymore. That plus the fact that maybe some people also did the arbitrage thing with gox, leaving less cash at bitfinex. Now there is suddenly more action in the market, and little cash in bitfinex. As a lender, it's great for the moment, but it will change again as people bring in more money. |
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Bitcoin = Currency??  BitcoinDelusiontalk.com I transact value with other people all over the world by transferring bitcoins. If you think that's not a currency, then you are the delusional one. I can trade my TV for something else on Craigslist or anywhere in the world. Does that make my TV a currency? A TV has value because of non-monetary uses. Bitcoin only has value because of monetary use. Or what is your definition of a currency? |
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So what, we have a huge market cap based around what? Its use to transfer wealth cheaply and quickly through the internet? Big companies are already heavily tied with the traditional banking system. They are not prone to change and they certainly wont for a 5 year old currency with an inflated market cap based on speculation. We need to build from the ground up. Let the companies see people wanting to spend bitcoins and they will follow. Trying to shortcut it is not helping adoption.
It's a pointless discussion anyway. We'll just let reality play out. |
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And how are big companies like Apple going to use bitcoin as a currency when it has a market cap of 1 billion? It would be the equivalent of an elephant trying to get in through the dog-door. A big market cap helps the viability of the currency.
Trying to get straight into the claws of an un-innovative (no idea the Antonym?) company like apple is the wrong approach. We need to build companies from the ground up that USE the currency like paypal would, for example. Whether through adoption or creation. That was not my point. My point was that for certain companies to realistically accept bitcoins, the market cap needs to be higher so that when they put in or take out value, the volatility/slippage doesn't hurt them. "Evil" speculators that put their money in bitcoin will raise the marketcap and thereby help bitcoins transactional use (although emotional trading with buying high and selling low obviously has a negative effect through increasing volatility, but I don't think this can be helped as it is human nature). So good traders are actually the best for bitcoin :-). EDIT: And you are right that we need companies to actually use bitcoin. Currently, only small companies that can handle the volatility can directly accept BTC reliably (without being speculators, like bitcoinstore.com), other companies have to use intermediaries like Bitpay (which helps bitcoin too imho). |
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Bitcoin = Currency?? BitcoinDelusiontalk.com I transact value with other people all over the world by transferring bitcoins. If you think that's not a currency, then you are the delusional one. |
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In short because it's the most perfect form of money that has ever existed. Eventuslly mr. Market will recognise this and the market will reflect the true value.
Check out Erik Voorhees' articles if you like to reaf a clearly written explanation why Bitcoin is the best money thus far.
I agree, bitcoin is revolutionary. It IS the best form of money that has ever existed. However, it is still in its infancy whatever way you look at it. For it to BE money it needs a stable price, who is going to trade with something with no fixed value or at least some what of a guarantee of your spending power down the line. The ONLY way to get round this is to stop all this crazy speculation that it's bigger than Jesus/the internet etc and actually use it as money. Until it is actually used as money en masse all this volatility is just delaying it being mass adopted. Yes a bubble is great for bitcoin, for publicity and adoption, but it NEEDS to deflate and have steady growth in order to compete as money. All this bullish sentiment that its value right now is in tripple digits or that it will some day be the global currency is irrelevant. Bitcoin needs to walk before it can run and with the only people jumping on the train are expecting it. The price ends up being 99% speculation and 1% asset, this only helps to stunt its growth as a viable currency. And how are big companies like Apple going to use bitcoin as a currency when it has a market cap of 1 billion? It would be the equivalent of an elephant trying to get in through the dog-door. A big market cap helps the viability of the currency. |
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