z

[Cluster2k]

I can spot a zero-sum game! This is one.
My sum keeps growing. So, I'm alright with that.

If you're playing the market, let's see how long said sum keeps on growing.
Everyone always thinks they're smarter than the crowd.
By definition, they're not.

I lose some once in a while. I'm okay with that as well. The way I play, I have a great chance of changing positions before I'm stuck. The main thing that I fear is someone dumping 50k-100k coins. Moving the price straight through and far past my buy orders, leaving me with a bunch of overpriced coins. But hey, shit happens, and that is something I was fully aware of coming into this.

I had an aunt like you.

Just like you, she always mentioned how much she won in casinos,
but rarely mentioned her losses. When asked about losing, she would
say, "yeah, I lose once in a while", but was quickly back at telling us
all about her latest big win.

She died without a penny to her name, her relatives had to pay for her
burial.

Know what the number one cause of death is?  Life.
You can play life safe, sit around and do nothing and you won't have anything to show for how you lived.
What does it matter anyway? -- you can't take any of it with you.  I see that point.
But I'd rather live with some degree of excitement.

Is this advocacy for pissing your money away at a casino?  Sure, it's exciting, but looking at all the sad saps pumping their pensions into poker machines all day I would hardly describe any of them as having the time of their lives.

Part of having a 'life' is leaving assets to your children so that they can live a better life than you did.  Yes, you can't take it with you.  My father will leave his house to me, which will greatly aid in paying off my mortgage.  I hope to leave my house to my children, rather than donate it slowly to a casino.

[FlipPro]

these so called 'gamblers' provide liquidity plus beta-testing the system, if they able to go home with gains - more power to them. the network will balance itself out anyway

First decent idea I've heard so far.

But doesn't address my main beef : how do we get
Joe six-pack to use BTC if it keeps doing the crazy dance ?

Znort I feel your pain, but if you look at the 1 month Bitcoin chart, we have had decent stability up until the New Year

I suspect we will retrace back within a week. Things will stabilize, we will learn from our last bubble to $30, fingers crossed.

Things are so much different now than they were on the first bubble.

1st. There is at-least triple times the users now holding BTC. Because of all the dumping, Bitcoins are now more evenly spread out, making the market much harder to manipulate.
2nd. There are multiple exchanges now, and Mtgox has really come a long way from the hacking (which was one of the triggers that sparked the great decline)
3rd.  Bitcoin is much better understood by the general population.

I actually think the best thing that could happen to us right now is a rally to $100, simply because the amount of users/attention it would generate, would help negate any possibility of a mass pump and dump.

Now, I know why you got mad.

You just painted a very clear picture of someone who thinks
he has it all figured out, precisely the type of folks I think
are hurting the speed at which bitcoin can gain wide acceptance.
 

I won't feed your troll post anymore. I suggest no one else here does either. I have done more for BTC in 1 month than you will ever do in your entire life, but I'm the one hurting it? I'm simply saying that you seriously don't "get it". This is not supposed to be some artificially controlled economy, like the US Dollar or the Euro. These currencies have countries regulating the value/production/destruction and everything you can think of to keep that price at a "stable" level like you wan't it to. You know what that makes? A FALSE economy, much like the one we are in right now IRL. Every country in the world is completly broke, yet they still have the "money" to stabilize their own bankrupt economies. I'm not necessarily anti fed reserve, and certainly not anti-government, but this fake money system that the entire planet has got going on, has got to fucking go... You sound like you want to bring the same artificial environment to Bitcoin.

My question is... Have you checked out Solidcoin?  They have an artificial economy, that keeps things "real stable". It might be exactly what you are looking for, but watch out, with any ARTIFICIAL ECONOMY, you always risk the chance of  GETTING BURNED.

[tvbcof]

Wrong. I want a stable exchange rate for long enough so mainstream merchants
can start accepting bitcoins without being exposed to extreme exchange rate volatility
risk.

If a merchant cannot figure out how to protect themselves against the BTC volatility at this point, there is little hope of them having the skills to run anything much more complicated than a hot-dog stand.  They would probably be better off flipping burgers rather than losing their money trying to run a business anyway IMHO.

[Crypt_Current]

I can spot a zero-sum game! This is one.
My sum keeps growing. So, I'm alright with that.

If you're playing the market, let's see how long said sum keeps on growing.
Everyone always thinks they're smarter than the crowd.
By definition, they're not.

I lose some once in a while. I'm okay with that as well. The way I play, I have a great chance of changing positions before I'm stuck. The main thing that I fear is someone dumping 50k-100k coins. Moving the price straight through and far past my buy orders, leaving me with a bunch of overpriced coins. But hey, shit happens, and that is something I was fully aware of coming into this.

I had an aunt like you.

Just like you, she always mentioned how much she won in casinos,
but rarely mentioned her losses. When asked about losing, she would
say, "yeah, I lose once in a while", but was quickly back at telling us
all about her latest big win.

She died without a penny to her name, her relatives had to pay for her
burial.

Know what the number one cause of death is?  Life.
You can play life safe, sit around and do nothing and you won't have anything to show for how you lived.
What does it matter anyway? -- you can't take any of it with you.  I see that point.
But I'd rather live with some degree of excitement.

Is this advocacy for pissing your money away at a casino?  Sure, it's exciting, but looking at all the sad saps pumping their pensions into poker machines all day I would hardly describe any of them as having the time of their lives.

Part of having a 'life' is leaving assets to your children so that they can live a better life than you did.  Yes, you can't take it with you.  My father will leave his house to me, which will greatly aid in paying off my mortgage.  I hope to leave my house to my children, rather than donate it slowly to a casino.

Fabulous.  I don't have children and I don't wish to.
And for what it's worth, I wasn't trying to defend the OP by any means -- I was sorta being sarcastic.

[RyNinDaCleM]

I can spot a zero-sum game! This is one.
My sum keeps growing. So, I'm alright with that.

If you're playing the market, let's see how long said sum keeps on growing.
Everyone always thinks they're smarter than the crowd.
By definition, they're not.

I lose some once in a while. I'm okay with that as well. The way I play, I have a great chance of changing positions before I'm stuck. The main thing that I fear is someone dumping 50k-100k coins. Moving the price straight through and far past my buy orders, leaving me with a bunch of overpriced coins. But hey, shit happens, and that is something I was fully aware of coming into this.

I had an aunt like you.

Just like you, she always mentioned how much she won in casinos,
but rarely mentioned her losses. When asked about losing, she would
say, "yeah, I lose once in a while", but was quickly back at telling us
all about her latest big win.

She died without a penny to her name, her relatives had to pay for her
burial.

I'm sorry that I don't get ecstatic, and start bragging about my "big loss"! So here's one for ya!
Just today I made the new high before the price went to $7.22. My finger twitched on the buy button, and I bought 200BTC @ $7.18 (I couldn't cancel it out in time).  I still haven't sold them yet. So, I'm losing right now. Awe shucks...er, I mean WOO HOO!   

[casascius]

If someone drops 50k to 100k coins they will get snapped up.

Check back in a week and see if you are still saying boo hoo. I'm holding mine.

[punningclan]

BTC just hit $7 ...   

What's going to be the undoing of bitcoin is not goverments,
not technical issues, not hackers, but simple lack of adoption
because of exchange rate volatility caused by people who can't
spot a zero-sum game when they see one. Sad.

It's like you want to put a cap on the value of trust? Everyone buys gold when they lose trust, and often their entire savings account to elite shenanigans. It's not irrational to move your wealth elsewhere when it's under threat. It's *2600* times more expensive to go to the cinema now than it was in the 30s, that's a lot of sum, what's sad are the folk who accept it.

[RyNinDaCleM]

If someone drops 50k to 100k coins they will get snapped up.

Check back in a week and see if you are still saying boo hoo. I'm holding mine.

I absolutely understand this! I'm not bitching about my nervous systems' malfunction. Like I said, "shit happens", and you work with it.

The Woo-Hoo part was just to add a sarcastic overtone to my boasting.