In Spain, The Bitcoin Run Has Started (Zero Hedge)

[Steve]

Whoa: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-20/spain-bitcoin-run-has-started

Featured Story on Zero Hedge right now.

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[cypherdoc]

there's some fightin' words in there.

[Elwar]

There is a bitcoin run? Should we all rush to our wallets and withdraw?

[notig]

IMO people are foolish to think this has to do with the price spike. That would imply that people in spain knew about bitcoin... didn't invest in it.. but all the sudden hear about bank confiscation and decide to invest. There are a couple of problems with that scenario. For one... right now it's hard to buy bitcoins. It takes time. People probably didn't know about bitcoin before savings were confiscated so how would they know about it all the sudden?


The recent price surge is obvious.... it coincides directly with the FinCEN release. Apparently some people were waiting in the wings for some kind of government acknowledgement of bitcoin... good or bad. Apparently the release that they did was good enough some who were holding back to get further invested.

[robamichael]

IMO people are foolish to think this has to do with the price spike. That would imply that people in spain knew about bitcoin... didn't invest in it.. but all the sudden hear about bank confiscation and decide to invest. There are a couple of problems with that scenario. For one... right now it's hard to buy bitcoins. It takes time. People probably didn't know about bitcoin before savings were confiscated so how would they know about it all the sudden?


The recent price surge is obvious.... it coincides directly with the FinCEN release. Apparently some people were waiting in the wings for some kind of government acknowledgement of bitcoin... good or bad. Apparently the release that they did was good enough some who were holding back to get further invested.

The Cyprus situation is still very bullish for BTC.

The increased demand for bitcoins does not need to come from the Eurozone itself. The Bitcoin world is watching these capital controls unfold and realize that bitcoins provide an exceptional alternative. As the near term potential of Bitcoin use increases, so does its demand.

This price mechanism is not exclusive to Bitcoin markets. It's the same reason we see, at times, markets react immediately to announcements made by public officials. For example, the Fed announces QE, and the price of gold shoots up - it's not that gold is instantly under the effect of inflation, but rather that people expect the inflation in the future. Speculators are, no surprise here, speculating on the recent news.

[notig]

well I agree it is bullish for btc... I just doin't think the price surge was because of that. The price surged because people already had money lined up ready to invest. Those people had to already know about bitcoin so they had to know that bitcoin saving your money from being confiscated was already possible with bitcoin. It's not some new piece of information. I guess you could say that some people who are involved with bitcoin didn't know it was possible that savings in banks could be confiscated....  and to some degree the price rise might be from those people but I bet by and large it is from the FinCEN.

Also I think it's kind of silly for people to react to this savings confiscation differently than the simple printing of more currency. It's not different than confiscation through inflation. Both are robbing purchasing power. One is just more sneaky.

[Elwar]

The recent price surge is obvious.... it coincides directly with the FinCEN release. Apparently some people were waiting in the wings for some kind of government acknowledgement of bitcoin... good or bad. Apparently the release that they did was good enough some who were holding back to get further invested.

The price spike is self perpetuating. When it broke $32 all bets were off. When articles about Bitcoin passing the all time high included a blurb mentioning that the price had doubled in the past month, people with money who want it to double jumped in.

The fact that it has gone up 10% per day for the past 3 days will get people who want to have 30% more money in 3 days to invest. There are a lot of people who want that.

If it starts to drop, the self perpetuation will continue in the other direction.

We could be investing in dog farts, if the price were going up this fast, we would have people investing.

[Rincewind]

The Cyprus situation is still very bullish for BTC.

It's not just Cyprus though. Once the threat of haircuts and bank runs begins, there's no getting that genie back inside the bottle. It is spreading like a virus, and it could happen in America.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-19/us-deposits-perspective-25-billion-insurance-9283-billion-deposits-297514-billion-de

FDIC only has $25B insurance against $9T in deposits (don't worry, the Treasury will print off $500B more in case of emergency, like that'll help). I've already resigned myself to the fact that Social Security will be bankrupt before I retire in 30 years; hell, it'll be bankrupt in 10 anyway.

The cat is out of the bag. The clock is ticking.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-20/saxo-bank-ceo-cyprus-deposit-levy-first-sign-widespread-wealth-tax

The idea of a one-off wealth tax, however, is not new. Several research reports have pointed in recent years to the fact that the desperate need for funding in the public sector could - and probably will - eventually lead to confiscation of wealth in a monumental scale. Boston Consulting Group suggested in a recent report that about 29 percent of ALL private wealth, not just deposits, will eventually be likely to be confiscated to cover the debts already incurred.

Diversity today means precious metals, bitcoins, whatever crap you can stash in your basement that should be worth more tomorrow than what it is today, plus whatever will fit under your matress. After all, prospecting collectibles to flip on eBay will give better returns than parking money into a savings account at 0.03% interest.

BTC trade prices could right now be a bubble, and I think they probably are at $65USD. But that doesn't rule out long term growth. There was a bubble before and BTC recovered very well in a reasonable amount of time. E.g., The bubble could pop and fall back to $25 - 30 tomorrow, but BTC should still logarithmically grow to $100 after many months anyway.

Go long.

[the founder]

People we have work ahead of us.. we need to make bitcoin easier to use,  easier to buy, easier to sell...  easier to trade...    we need grandma to send her grandkids bitcoins when they are in college...

[Rincewind]

People we have work ahead of us.. we need to make bitcoin easier to use,  easier to buy, easier to sell...  easier to trade...    we need grandma to send her grandkids bitcoins when they are in college...

+1

Grandma needs to know how to convert her PayPal balance into BTC first, without faxing over a copy of her drivers license. That seems to be the real hurdle. It needs to be easier than buying BTC off eBay at 15% markup.

[Bit_Happy]

People we have work ahead of us.. we need to make bitcoin easier to use,  easier to buy, easier to sell...  easier to trade...    we need grandma to send her grandkids bitcoins when they are in college...

Yes

[inge]

Grandma needs to know how to convert her PayPal balance into BTC first, without faxing over a copy of her drivers license. That seems to be the real hurdle. It needs to be easier than buying BTC off eBay at 15% markup.

Yes, and…the Bitcoins wallet don’t look like all that sexy for Grandma…For trust, people need to understand how things work.

[the founder]

Think about it this way.

You go to the store, whip out your credit card, swipe it and walk away with your goods.

It needs to be this simple.

For now (in our current stage of development) what we have is okay... but it's no where near as simple as listed above.  What we have now involves QR codes,  huge bitcoin addresses,  confirmation waits, currency conversions (everything is still priced in Dollars, Euros, or whatever your currency is).   Now things are better now than in 2011 for example, but we still have plenty of work to do.

People need to go to the store, whip out their bitcoin card,  swipe it and walk way with their goods.   

During that 10 second transaction both the individual and the merchant should know exactly what was purchased for exactly how much. 

As I said we're getting there,  several services out there are starting to put it together,  but we're roughly in the 1960's in terms of ease of use.  Right near the credit card line where they become commonplace, but not yet there.

[cypherdoc]

Think about it this way.

You go to the store, whip out your credit card, swipe it and walk away with your goods.

It needs to be this simple.

For now (in our current stage of development) what we have is okay... but it's no where near as simple as listed above.  What we have now involves QR codes,  huge bitcoin addresses,  confirmation waits, currency conversions (everything is still priced in Dollars, Euros, or whatever your currency is).   Now things are better now than in 2011 for example, but we still have plenty of work to do.

People need to go to the store, whip out their bitcoin card,  swipe it and walk way with their goods.   

During that 10 second transaction both the individual and the merchant should know exactly what was purchased for exactly how much. 

As I said we're getting there,  several services out there are starting to put it together,  but we're roughly in the 1960's in terms of ease of use.  Right near the credit card line where they become commonplace, but not yet there.

i understand what you're saying but i think you're being a little too hard on us.

the lack of debasement, anonymity, and general mild inconveniences are worth it even for grandma.  after all, she's the one getting 0.04% interest on her bank acct and looking to get her Medicare and SS slashed in the coming years b/c of the system we have.

[the founder]

i understand what you're saying but i think you're being a little too hard on us.

By us I mean myself too.  I believe that I am part of the problem right now as I have tools avaible to help increase bitcoin awareness and ease of use but not everything is implemented yet, but it's getting better.

Today i'll be launching the ounce.me bitcoin app on the Android Platform ...  I then intend to lobby instawallet to include it's RSS feeds for wallet holders so they can see the spot price when they are using their coins in mobile commerce.

[Gabi]

People we have work ahead of us.. we need to make bitcoin easier to use,  easier to buy, easier to sell...  easier to trade...    we need grandma to send her grandkids bitcoins when they are in college...

+1

Grandma needs to know how to convert her PayPal balance into BTC first, without faxing over a copy of her drivers license. That seems to be the real hurdle. It needs to be easier than buying BTC off eBay at 15% markup.

It is impossible, paypal cannot be trusted 

[Nubarius]

I think the fact that this is happening at the same time as the Cyprus crisis is purely coincidental. Cyprus is seen as a small far-away country here in Spain and most people won't draw any analogies between its situation and Spain's. It might have been different if the plan for a deposit levy had happened in Portugal or Italy but, even in that case, people would sooner be taking their euros out of banks and putting them under their mattresses rather than looking for alternative stores of value. Confidence in the banking system may have taken a hit, but not in the euro itself. I think the English-speaking media has consistently failed to understand how strong support for the euro is in southern Europe, and all stories about people ditching their euros and looking for alternatives have little credibility.

So what has caused the sudden spike in interest in Spain? Google Trends shows that it has happened for real: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Bitcoin&geo=US%2C%20ES%2C%20DE&date=4%2F2012%2013m&cmpt=geo


The likeliest explanation is that there were a couple of articles about Bitcoin in two widely-read news websites in Spain: elmundo.es and eleconomista.es. The articles were rather bad in quality, but they were among the headlines on the home pages for some time, which probably prompted a lot of people to search for more information.

[flix]

Those of us in Spain have been working pretty hard on promoting bitcoin.... there was a conference a few weeks ago, there's a new book coming out (http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-funciona-cambiar%C3%A1-Spanish-ebook/dp/B0088IG0UA) and we've done quite a bit of media... but the major catalyst has definitely been the price.

Although the new deposit tax in Spain, coming on the heels of Cyprus has also been a factor. More people are realising that the money that they have at the bank does not belong to them, but to the bank.

[GideonGono]

I think the fact that this is happening at the same time as the Cyprus crisis is purely coincidental. Cyprus is seen as a small far-away country here in Spain and most people won't draw any analogies between its situation and Spain's. It might have been different if the plan for a deposit levy had happened in Portugal or Italy but, even in that case, people would sooner be taking their euros out of banks and putting them under their mattresses rather than looking for alternative stores of value. Confidence in the banking system may have taken a hit, but not in the euro itself. I think the English-speaking media has consistently failed to understand how strong support for the euro is in southern Europe, and all stories about people ditching their euros and looking for alternatives have little credibility.

This is what i do not understand? Why would anyone in their right mind think it's ok to keep their Euros in the bank at near zero interest? At the very least, I'd have my money in cash under my mattress, in a safe, safe deposit box, anywhere out of the reach of the greedy banksters and their stooge politicians. At least when SHTF, I'll rest easy knowing I can quickly trade out of the system at a moments notice instead of having my money frozen during a "bank holiday." Cyprus may be a "far away land" but Italy is not. It's been little over 20 years since Italians had their savings confiscated in 1992.

TBH, anyone caught with their pants down and gets a haircut after all these warnings really doesn't deserve to have any money at all. The writting is on the wall, sooner or later the house of cards will come tumbling down.

[ValtteriRyhtila]

I think the fact that this is happening at the same time as the Cyprus crisis is purely coincidental. Cyprus is seen as a small far-away country here in Spain and most people won't draw any analogies between its situation and Spain's. It might have been different if the plan for a deposit levy had happened in Portugal or Italy but, even in that case, people would sooner be taking their euros out of banks and putting them under their mattresses rather than looking for alternative stores of value. Confidence in the banking system may have taken a hit, but not in the euro itself. I think the English-speaking media has consistently failed to understand how strong support for the euro is in southern Europe, and all stories about people ditching their euros and looking for alternatives have little credibility.

So what has caused the sudden spike in interest in Spain? Google Trends shows that it has happened for real: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Bitcoin&geo=US%2C%20ES%2C%20DE&date=4%2F2012%2013m&cmpt=geo


The likeliest explanation is that there were a couple of articles about Bitcoin in two widely-read news websites in Spain: elmundo.es and eleconomista.es. The articles were rather bad in quality, but they were among the headlines on the home pages for some time, which probably prompted a lot of people to search for more information.

I think that you are underestimating the effect of the "rescue packet" of Cyprus. Here in Finland Cyprus and whole southern Europe is very far away, but everybody is talking about it. Bitcoin's market cap is still only about 500 million € and it doesn't take many people to make small investments to drive the price up considerably.

Or maybe whole southern Europe is in so big troubles because you don't take any action when you see that there's a big change that shit is going to hit the fan at the some point in the future.