Bitcoin: DO YOU SPEAK IT???

[lukestokes]

I just published my first blog post about my last month or so learning Bitcoin. I'd love for you to give it a read and let me know if I missed something or if I'm way off somewhere.

http://bestoked.blogspot.com/2013/03/bitcoin-do-you-speak-it.html

There are some great posts out there about Bitcoin, but sometimes they can be hard to find. Do you have one? I'd love to read it. If you do, please reply with a link so I can check it out.

Thanks!

[bbit]

I just published my first blog post about my last month or so learning Bitcoin. I'd love for you to give it a read and let me know if I missed something or if I'm way off somewhere.

http://bestoked.blogspot.com/2013/03/bitcoin-do-you-speak-it.html

There are some great posts out there about Bitcoin, but sometimes they can be hard to find. Do you have one? I've love to read it. If you do, please reply with a link so I can check it out.

Thanks!

I'll read it over and let you know what I think! 

[CIYAM]

Not a bad effort but one thing to be clear about is that Bitcoins never *actually* traded at 0.01 USD (although the media loves to report that) as all the supposed trades that occurred between the *hack* occurring and the system being brought back up after it was shut down were *wound back*(and from memory after Mt. Gox started trading again it was from around 17 USD).

[lukestokes]

Not a bad effort but one thing to be clear about is that Bitcoins never *actually* traded at 0.01 USD (although the media loves to report that) as all the supposed trades that occurred between the *hack* occurring and the system being brought back up after it was shut down were *wound back*(and from memory after Mt. Gox started trading again it was from around 17 USD).

Ah, thank you! I do remember seeing something about it being wound back, but I didn't make the connection.

Brings up an interesting point, though. What the media reports impacts public perception which changes trust and results in a reality which almost doesn't care about what actually happened. Sad.

[CIYAM]

Brings up an interesting point, though. What the media reports impacts public perception which changes trust and results in a reality which almost doesn't care about what actually happened. Sad.

Indeed - "don't believe anything that you read and it's probably best to be skeptical of everything that you see with your own eyes".

[solex]

Good stuff.

Since you are interested in FRB, this paper is a must. Bitcoin makes FRB obsolete by providing the Austrian ideal of an inelastic monetary base.

http://dev.economicsofbitcoin.com/mastersthesis/mastersthesis-surda-2012-11-19b.pdf

[lukestokes]

Good stuff.

Since you are interested in FRB, this paper is a must. Bitcoin makes FRB obsolete by providing the Austrian ideal of an inelastic monetary base.

http://dev.economicsofbitcoin.com/mastersthesis/mastersthesis-surda-2012-11-19b.pdf

Thanks Solex. Believe it or not, I actually clicked through to that today and did a TL;DR, though I did enjoy some posts over there.

I will have to give it a read at some point.

[Melbustus]

Did you tweet that? I think I saw a tweet by that title (ie, this thread's title) a little while ago...

I'll give the blog a read shortly!

[Melbustus]

Bitcoin makes FRB obsolete by providing the Austrian ideal of an inelastic monetary base.

I'll pay you 3% APR to deposit your bitcoins into my bank. To earn that 3% you must sign a contract stating you will not withdraw those coins for the entire year, and you allow the bank to loan or invest these coins as they see fit during that period.

Voila, Bitcoin FRB.

Yeah, the inelastic base just makes it far less feasible to run huge leverage throughout the whole FRB system. Since there's no ability to print new money, bank-runs can't be backstopped with it... But, you can still do "safe" FRB levels (10x seems to be about where humans start to get twitchy, so maybe 5x would fly without any panics?).

[Melbustus]

I just published my first blog post about my last month or so learning Bitcoin. I'd love for you to give it a read and let me know if I missed something or if I'm way off somewhere.

http://bestoked.blogspot.com/2013/03/bitcoin-do-you-speak-it.html

There are some great posts out there about Bitcoin, but sometimes they can be hard to find. Do you have one? I'd love to read it. If you do, please reply with a link so I can check it out.

Thanks!

Nice post - you cover a lot of ground and link to some of the better resources... Wish you could add NameCheap.com to the list of businesses accepting bitcoin right now, but they're still busy implementing it...


Edit: And here's a blog post from Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz that mentions bitcoin: What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years. Love seeing mentions, even just in passing, from some of the top VCs out there...

[solex]

Bitcoin makes FRB obsolete by providing the Austrian ideal of an inelastic monetary base.

I'll pay you 3% APR to deposit your bitcoins into my bank. To earn that 3% you must sign a contract stating you will not withdraw those coins for the entire year, and you allow the bank to loan or invest these coins as they see fit during that period.

Voila, Bitcoin FRB.

Yeah, the inelastic base just makes it far less feasible to run huge leverage throughout the whole FRB system. Since there's no ability to print new money, bank-runs can't be backstopped with it... But, you can still do "safe" FRB levels (10x seems to be about where humans start to get twitchy, so maybe 5x would fly without any panics?).

I did say obsolete, which is not the same as impossible. IMHO the existing central banks, faced with a bitcoin economy, will have a huge dilemma. Which is to regulate bank lending with very high reserve requirements to minimize bank failures or accept backstopping failed banks with real, taxpayer money. So CBs would probably sacrifice FRB to maintain a semblance of control over the banking system.

[lukestokes]

Nice post - you cover a lot of ground and link to some of the better resources... Wish you could add NameCheap.com to the list of businesses accepting bitcoin right now, but they're still busy implementing it...

Edit: And here's a blog post from Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz that mentions bitcoin: What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years. Love seeing mentions, even just in passing, from some of the top VCs out there...

Thanks!

Please feel free to add NameCheap to the comments.

And thanks for that link from cdixon. I really enjoyed it and shared it on Twitter as well. Good stuff there.