An insider's opinion on the crazy Bitcoin market

[caveden]

States are getting more and more desperate for money..... this is not going to end well.

It would be a good thing if everything were to collapse the soonest possible, so that they have the political excuse to default on these monstrous debts for once and for good.

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[StarfishPrime]

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5) The FinCEN ruling clarified the government's stance on Bitcoin about 3 weeks ago. The good news is Bitcoin is very much legal, and will be treated basically like money. People don't need to worry that the government will come down on it any time soon.
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-Erik

Thanks Erik for an excellent summary, one that every bitcoin holder / potential investor should read.

One thought on the above (5) however: If the gov't ever considers bitcoin a threat to the 'real' economy, or a 'clear and present danger' to US interests at home or abroad, for whatever reason (i.e. funding enemies of the state, etc.) could this change very quickly and without warning?

Nobody saw US gold confiscation coming in the 1930's, for example.

Bitcoins may be safe on a PC or thumb drive, but I'd guess that a very large percentage are stored with trusted parties (US or soon-to-be US based) like Mt.Gox and others. Needless to say that 'bitcoin funds can never be frozen' does NOT apply in that case. Just ask any (former) e-gold account holder.

In addition, such sites have reasonably low daily withdrawal limits for security reasons.


 

[virtualmaster]

...
5) The FinCEN ruling clarified the government's stance on Bitcoin about 3 weeks ago. The good news is Bitcoin is very much legal, and will be treated basically like money. People don't need to worry that the government will come down on it any time soon.
...
-Erik

Thanks Erik for an excellent summary, one that every bitcoin holder / potential investor should read.

One thought on the above (5) however: If the gov't ever considers bitcoin a threat to the 'real' economy, or a 'clear and present danger' to US interests at home or abroad, for whatever reason (i.e. funding enemies of the state, etc.) could this change very quickly and without warning?

Nobody saw US gold confiscation coming in the 1930's, for example.

Bitcoins may be safe on a PC or thumb drive, but I'd guess that a very large percentage are stored with trusted parties (US or soon-to-be US based) like Mt.Gox and others. Needless to say that 'bitcoin funds can never be frozen' does NOT apply in that case.

In addition, such sites have reasonably low daily withdrawal limits for security reasons.

Yeah. Before this happens we need a better deterministic brain wallet generator.

[mmortal03]

2) Cyprus scared the hell out of everyone (and rightly so). While a few Cypriots may have bought some Bitcoin, the bigger influence is a world of onlookers who are all thinking, "well that could happen to US!" and "look how Bitcoin solves the problem of trusting banks." It's not so much that Cypriots are buying bitcoins now, but rather that the world realizes that as this euro (and soon dollar...) crisis continues unfolding, a greater number of people will seek some degree of refuge in Bitcoin. Speculators, seeing this possibility, are buying up Bitcoins.

3) Venture capital (and private investor) money is moving into Bitcoin. A small handful of VC firms putting in a small handful of their money could explain the entire current price rise.

4) An increasingly wide swath of the libertarian/gold & silver "hard money" types are buying into Bitcoin. They were very skeptical at first, but are coming around. There are probably a few hundred thousand people like this in America who are deciding to put a few grand into Bitcoin.

7) Ignorant, foolish people are buying bitcoins simply because the price is going up and they think (consciously or unconsciously) that this means it'll go up tomorrow. Maybe 1% of the buying interest is from people like this, or maybe 99%. Such people may get really lucky, or impoverish themselves, but either way they're in it for the wrong reason.

Why are the number 7 group "in it for the wrong reason", but 2, 3, and 4 are not? What are the practical differences between any of these? All of these can be made to be very right if the price goes up significantly, or made to be very wrong if the price goes down significantly. Their individual "reasons" for buying bitcoins doesn't seem to matter at all, at least from how I see it.