"There can be only 21,000,000 bitcoins" is myth => How to secure the blockchain?

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

Once mt gox includes litcoin in a couple of weeks, the stage is set to see whether an altcoin does impact bitcoins value, recently both coins rallied hard at the same time.

If its the case that it's easier to get USD into mt gox than btc-e, then having Litecoin on mt gox is an aid in bringing fresh money into Litecoin rather than converting bitcoins to litecoins.

If tommy bought $1000 worth of Bitcoin in 2012, then he buys $1000 Litecoin in may 2013. Is Tommy guilty of weakening Bitcoin ?

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[Littleshop]

u think, gox is a ponzi?

[1] Wait for a lot of bid orders
[2] Sell phantom bitcoins
[3] Press [Lag] button
[4] Wait for a lot of ask orders at lower price
[5] Buy phantom bitcoins back
[6] Go to #1

This may be happening but it most certainly is not the owners of gox doing it.

Anyone can do this with real bitcoins or dollars. Pressing the lag button is just turning on a botnet.  Sell 1000 BTC, turn on botnet.  Buy back 1500. Repeat.

[Littleshop]

If coins that are lost disappear forever, how long will it take before the vast majority of the 21 million simply disappear into a huge file of bits and bytes that can't be accessed?

As they become more valuable less will disappear.
Someday in the year 2080 we may need to do a 100 to 1 split. Your kids can worry about that one.

[bitcool]

I have a solution. We should attack the other altcoins. And keep attacking if any new alt pops up. Not sure most of bitcoiners will support this though.

EDIT: After we sort out altcoins we should switch to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108411.0

While I think your Anti-Fractional Reserve day is a wonderful idea, attacking altcoins in defending bitcoin will sure be the fastest way to alienate the community, because most altcoiners are also bitcoiners.  

Most altcoins have/will go thru a natural selection process, only the fittest will survive.

My guess is the free market will create profit-motivated groups or entities, who will feed on weak coins and profit from killing weaklings; this can be cruel for some, but healthy for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.

Edit: OMG, did I just make an excuse for those Wall Street naked shorting bastards? 

[ixne]

And now imagine that EVERYONE has an ASIC. How much coins will u get? I'm not sure it will be enough to cover the electricity.

If mining isn't profitable due to electricity costs, then miner activity (and therefore difficulty) would decrease mining until the difficulty fell to a new equilibrium that would be profitable.
If mining isn't profitable due to low transaction fees, then transaction times would increase and users would pay increasingly more for transactions until mining became profitable again.

Honestly, people just use this forum to have conversations they should be having in their head while reading the Bitcoin wiki.

[unk]

This may be happening but it most certainly is not the owners of gox doing it.

how would any of us know?

[Operatr]

What are you smoking Come-from-Beyond? It must be good, whatever it is.

For someone with over 1000 posts this is one of the most nonsensical thread's I have read so far here. Spreading this kind of unfounded BS hurts the community

Destroy altcoins? That goes against the core ethos of the Bitcoin protocol. You should be ashamed of yourself for even saying something so ridiculous.

[jaywaka2713]

You do realize miners will keep mining regardless of the block reward because of something called the Miners Fee. People seem to forget that you actually get more than 25 BTC for solving a block.

[adamstgBit]

Everyone who thinks that there will be not more than 21,000,000 bitcoins IS WRONG.

1. Fractional Reserve Banking. For example, MtGox, they do FRB. (I'm wrong? They don't do it? C'mon, even small kids know that MtGox loves FRB.)
2. Altcoins. Litecoin, Bytecoin, whatever. (I'm wrong? These are other currencies? C'mon, it's Bitcoin with other names, look at their source code.)

What do these 2 points mean?

Bitcoin is not deflationary  =>  One BTC will never be $1,000,000  =>  When the block reward becomes too low, miners will switch to other currency, because fees won't cover burnt electricity

So, how are we going to secure the blockchain in the future?

I would expect better from a hero member, this is total FUD and you know it....

go home short seller.

[Elwar]

There is more than one Federal Reserve Note too.

C'mon...it is just FRNs with other names, look at the type of paper and ink used.

[hammz]

If coins that are lost disappear forever, how long will it take before the vast majority of the 21 million simply disappear into a huge file of bits and bytes that can't be accessed?

As they become more valuable less will disappear.
Someday in the year 2080 we may need to do a 100 to 1 split. Your kids can worry about that one.

Tinfoil hat moment but...

If I had a printing press, and wanted to kill bitcoin, I theoretically could keep buying them and sending them into oblivion.

i.e. 2.4 trillion went missing said Rumsfeld.

[Come-from-Beyond]

What are you smoking Come-from-Beyond? It must be good, whatever it is.

For someone with over 1000 posts this is one of the most nonsensical thread's I have read so far here. Spreading this kind of unfounded BS hurts the community

Destroy altcoins? That goes against the core ethos of the Bitcoin protocol. You should be ashamed of yourself for even saying something so ridiculous.

I just think few steps ahead:

Altcoins die => Bitcoin replaces fiat => World becomes better

OR

Altcoins keep poping up => Bitcoin is a geek currency => Nothing is changed

I would expect better from a hero member, this is total FUD and you know it....

go home short seller.

I would expect better from a hero member, this is total ostrich policy and you know it...

[kjj]

1. Fractional Reserve Banking. For example, MtGox, they do FRB. (I'm wrong? They don't do it? C'mon, even small kids know that MtGox loves FRB.)

credible reports surfaced that ppl could sell more btc than they had at gox, and gox would not give them an error or refuse the order.


that's NAKED SHORT SALE at Mt. Gox!

Yeah, it would be.  Except that when that order comes up for execution, it gets truncated to the currently available balance.  Also, it hasn't been that way for a long time; now the truncation happens when the order get switched from pending to active.