The letter is about SILK ROAD.

Because they sell DRUGS.

People just re-phrase it to be against Bitcoin. I never read they wanted to do anything against Bitcoin, or TOR, which were both mentioned as explanation, but nothing more.

Yeah, the growth is extremely massive!

I remember when 1M USD was a large volume for a month! Now, we've had three DAYS above 1M!

It might very well be Bitcoin. Electricity market doesn't usually see high fluctuations, so a systematic change like Bitcoin will push prices up.

*sich aufreg und wilden Rant als Kommentar hinterleg*

Alles Trottel. Nicht auszuhalten, was in den Medien so fabuliert werden kann. Man ist ja nicht selber schuld, wenn man nur den größten Mist zusammensammelt und dann auf ihn verweist! Juhu, Panikmache ftw! Not.

Und der Bildschirm greift deine Münzen weg! ZOMFG HACKER GREIFEN DIR DEINE MÜNZEN VOM TISCH! asdf~

Euch ist hoffentlich klar, dass öffentliche Chartanalysen typischerweise keine Aussagen über den Erwartungswert des zukünftigen Preises machen? Es geht ausschließlich um höhere Momente oder sontige Zusatzinformationen! Ansonsten wäre der Autor da ein Depp, nicht selbst den Preis zu korrigieren und durch ein exponentielles Geldwachstum (in der Transaktionszahl) reich zu werden. Außer natürlich, die Vorhersage stimmt nur, weil sie alle lesen und dann kaufen/verkaufen. Selbsterfüllende Prophezeihung! Funktioniert aber so gut wie nie auf lange Sicht.

Für höhere Momente sieht es natürlich anders aus. Aussagen über Varianz, Schiefe, etc. sind für einen großen Spekulanten zwar weniger interessant, für den durchschnittlichen Leser aber schon, da dieser im Vergleich zum Markt nur sehr begrenzte Mengen von Geld hat.

Wenn ich also einen Ratschlag geben darf: Preisabschätzung entscheidet, ob man kaufen bzw. verkaufen will. Chartanalyse und eigenes Vermögen bestimmen, wieviel man einsetzt, aber nicht, wie man es einsetzt. S3052 gibt am Anfang immer den aktuellen Trend an, aber das ist nur die Schiefe der Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung! Wenn ihr weiter unten lest, steht ab und zu auch etwas der Marke "achja, und falls X passiert, erwarte ich einen Preissturz zu 3 USD".

Ihr könnt natürlich einfach blind auf einen Trend spekulieren, das bringt häufig nette Gewinne und manchmal große Verluste. Dann heult aber nicht herum, falls zweiteres passiert!

Unless we have a Bubble -- or people being much more patient than they appear now -- this will depend on actual trade adoption.

If we don't see some adoption outside speculators, people pushing the price higher would take part in the world's largest pyramid scheme. So it all depends on the growth of the small but important amount of people who use BTC to trade for real goods.

I think the biggest question concerning that will be answered soon: will BitcoinJ bring us Bitcoin on Android, and will people use it? This is the one big thing I've been wondering about since before I joined this forum. Android users are Bitcoin's first target audience, the obvious choice to take things to the next level.

How Bitcoin will perform with Android users might decide everything. The moment an exponential growth in the Android user base becomes apparent, the failure probability of Bitcoin will fall drastically, and that should adjust price upwards. Similarly, failure to perform there might wipe out all hopes in sustaining current price. It's a very very strong indicator.

That said, my vote was fairly conservative (late), but I can't really answer yet. Gotta wait how things go with the first "real usage ready" Bitcoin client!

• We need further growth. If you don't grow along, fine with me, but nobody should suggest for others should stop. I'm one of those who want to push ever onward, I see no reason to stop before we have a Dyson Sphere, complete with means to expand to other solar systems. If we stop growing, we will vanish like the dinosaurs on the next cosmic event, and that is not my intention.
• The deflationary concept of Bitcoin doesn't hinder anyone from using it to trade. A frozen Bitcoin does not affect the moving of real-world items until it is spent; this scales down hoarders to a tiny fraction of economic activity.
• If deflation has a disadvantage, it currently is negligible against the problem of fiat currencies: not being able to pay cheaply and quickly across borders.

We require a stable, global currency. Further details are unimportant. I don't even see Bitcoin as a nice design. But it's an option people started to accept that is stable and global, and that makes it superior to everything we have had before.

Still, the actual goal of the whole operation -- in my eyes -- is economic growth. It would be kind of strange to abandon the main point just to prove that some tool can work. Luckily, we need not.

This should not be possible.

An exponential component is what you should mean, and that is very likely in a situation where new people continue to learn about Bitcoin and subsequently start using it. Of course, exponential growth will not continue after Bitcoin becomes macroscopic, which could be within months if things go on the way they are going now. However, you have no reason to expect price or the amount of Bitcoins traded to grow exponentially because of that. Currently, we have speculators -- later, we want traders! The transition will change how reach and price are linked.

Your reasoning assumes Bitcoin behaves like a Ponzi scheme. This need not be in the long run, and the profit margins allow speculators to wait patiently for quite a while. You must take into account that many speculators estimate the potential target price and success probability before buying. Those two multiplied are not growing exponentially just because the number of users is.

Finally, a blog that is not just trying to make a media flaming flood! (I hope this wasn't posted already.)

http://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential-adoption-and-price-appreciation-of-bitcoin-in-the-long-run/

Posts like this need more attention. Unlike most bloggers, this guy is actually trying to make reasonable models and think about how the world might react to Bitcoin.

I really like the estimates on comparable types of money, though I think we can't use the numbers as they are without some major corrections, which unfortunately can't be calculated as easily. The entire behavior and value of USD is dominated by book money right now, as hardly any big purchases are made in cash. This does not compare to a Bitcoin situation well. Especially since we have no clue how big the role of banking will be in Bitcoin.

One more thing to complain: some estimates do strange things, such as using the average amount of cash on a person times some developed country factor to estimate the amount they invested into Bitcoin. While the resulting number seems reasonable, this method of getting there isn't.

Still, I recommend the article. It's a nice read and takes parts of the world into account some people tend to forget about. Most of the news and blogs right now are just babbling or hyping, so this tone is refreshing to me.

It's really simple math. What is the failure or success chance for Bitcoin? Do you think it will fail with more than 90% chance?

Current value is the sum over each scenario's price times its probability. With the success scenario having people who estimate prices above 100 USD, those people will buy at 10 USD as long as they see a 10% chance of a full success happening! That's not strange, it's perfectly logic!

The question is only of quantitative nature, especially concerning the full success probability and the value it will have if that happens. Both are not known, so everybody takes a guess.

Are those free to use for everyone? If so, please state so wherever you post them! That would be great help for viral marketing!

I've come here after finding your work on:
http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/the-currency-thats-up-200000-1307029053200/?link=sm_newsticker

This image in the header is just awesome. The text, the red fading background, the shiny gold feeling! The original has too much space above and below, but the way it's on the article is just what we need to give BTC that expensive must-have look!

This is awesome, bitcoinj appears to be on a good way to finish the job!

This might become the main Bitcoin client. Java is much more suited for this kind of thing anyways. (I'd prefer C# even more, but for some reason all the people prefer Oracle and its patent shit to Mono.)

Anyways, I have a problem now. So many people are working on this now, I don't know whom we should pay the bounty to when they finish!

Edit: I hope the 800-pledges don't chicken out now, just because it's about 8000 USD? I want to see those brave souls granting us android support credit! I can't wait to start paying random android users in BTC!

Jaaa~ deutsche Händler!

Das Dasein als BTC-Besitzer ist so langweilig hier, man kann ja nur Kram in den USA oder sonstwo kaufen. Hoffentlich ändert sich das mal!

Die Operation fällt unter Hochrisikospekulation. Ich denke, Du musst mit einer Chance von über 50% rechnen, dass Bitcoin aus irgendwelchen Gründen zusammenbricht. Es ist der erste große Versuch der Art, und das System ist weder perfekt noch fertig -- hey, der Client ist offiziell noch eine Beta! Wenn Du investierst, sei bereit, alles zu verlieren.

Warum ich ein hohes Risiko annehme? Nicht die Sicherheit, sondern die Akzeptanz ist das Problem! Der aktuelle Preis beruht auf der Hoffnung, dass Händler in der Zukunft tatsächlich mit BTC handeln. Sollte das Wachstum des Interesses an Bitcoin plötzlich aufhören, könnte der Preis binnen weniger Stunden wieder deutlich unter 1 USD fallen. Wenn es nach den gehandelten Waren geht, sind Bitcoins villeicht noch ein paar Cents wert; der aktuelle Markt wächst zwar, aber ist immer noch winzig.

Spekulanten interessiert die Vergangenheit nicht; wenn sie keinen weiteren Preisanstieg erwarten und ihr Geld nicht direkt in BTC ausgeben können, verkaufen sie und spekulieren woanders weiter -- insbesondere kaufen sie nicht mehr ein. Wer zahlt noch für Bitcoins, wenn das zu früh passiert?

Das Konzept von Bitcoin ist für die wirtschaftliche Betrachtung übrigens ziemlich egal -- wichtig ist nur, dass es maximal 21M gibt und man sie gegen vermutlich gering ausfallende Gebühren in wenigen Minuten über den gesamten Globus übertragen kann. Und das ist schon verdammt cool; dagegen sieht klassisches Buchgeld aus wie ein schlechter Witz.

I'm kinda looking forward to the reward cut in end-2012. It will mark the point where half the coins were mined, and thus Bitcoin mining as a thing of the past rather than future.

If Bitcoin ever becomes something that's traded rather than just hoarded, initial distribution will no longer play a significant role. If a Bitcoin is mined once, then traded 10 000 times, the spending of miner wealth makes up for 0.01% of the market size. Unimportant.

Naah, I'm talking about a wild guess on all the technical risks concerning Bitcoin. Including network takeovers if we have too few miners after minting and all those other technical attack scenarios.

SHA256 breaking down... if that is our main concern, we're pretty safe.

Edit: yes, I know, no proof. SUDDENLY, P = NP. I doubt it.

If someone asks me how secure I believe a system is, what reasonable answer can I give, other than an infimum on success probability?

Of course, I have to use a conservative number; if they don't hold on average, my predictions would be worthless. I think 80% is a number I could bet on, under reasonable circumstances (network size, BTC gaining acceptance, exchangeable crypto schemes). A more precise estimate should really be above 80%.

So, uhm, simply said, it's pretty arbitrary. But I rely on it being true, so I strongly believe in it.

I think the system is secure with >80% chance. It will need to adapt in the future, but I was not able to find any major obstacle, and I spent some time looking at the dynamics and talking to people who are into crypto.

If you don't believe in cryptography, how can you ever type a password or personal message on the net, let alone do online banking or whatnot? All of this would be broken, most of it actually will be when a quantum computer is built.

But Bitcoin? It will just change crypto scheme while the quantum computer is under construction. The only problem would be if someone acquires a lot of private keys before Bitcoin has time to change scheme. This is not unthinkable, but unlikely.

@bitcoin2cash: Oh, sorry, I mistook you for a different user. So many people around, I should keep better track!



A discussion on this will dance around the definition of "theft". If all types of taxes are theft, we leave the commonly accepted terminology, but this seems to be the definition at hand. Let's take a clear example. IMO, those are situations in which a Tragedy of the Commons eradicates an entire system unless it changes rules.

Say, a medium-sized comet is known to just barely get close enough to hit the Earth, and someone finds a way to divert it for an operation that costs 10^12 €. I think the correct course of action is to cut a suitable fraction of all productivity on the planet and use it to divert the comet.

Now, this would mean forcefully taking the money from those who try to avoid paying, hoping that others will do so first. But otherwise, the system punishes those saving the Earth by giving them a disadvantage, which I find an unacceptable result.

Yeah~ Do it! Someone good at slogans and catchphrases, please teach the man!