Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[chilin_dude]

I remember when JorgeStolfi pretended to be unbias towards Bitcoin, and actually enjoyed his rational counter-arguments against BTC.

[cech4204a]

What does this has to do with bitcoin ?

[GreekGeek]

What does this has to do with bitcoin ?

underpriced ccmf?

[JorgeStolfi]

And these haven't been used to illegally obtain fiat on millions of occasions?

Of course; so we know that the danger of having keys stolen (particularly from users who are not computer security specialists) is not just a theoretical possibility.

Now compare a trojan that steals bitcoin keys with one that steals bank passwords or credit card data.

The bitcoin trojan can immediately sign and send off a request to transfer all the bitcoins in the compromised address to the thief's address.  The theft will be complete and irreversible before the victim has a chance to check his balance.  The thief does not have to intervene or even monitor the action, and he can be anywhere in the world.  Once the theft is complete, the victim has no recourse: he cannot even prove that the transfer was a theft.  A million such thefts can be performed on the same afternoon, or a single address can be emptied of one million bitcoins, and no one will suspect of anything.

A trojan that steals a bank password may try to send the stolen data to the thief, but that is risky since that communication could be traced.  Instead, the trojan could perhaps log into the bank by itself and issue a wire transfer to the thief's bank account.  The transfer may take hours or days, depending on where the thief is.  During that time, or even after it, the client may notice the theft, call the bank and cancel the transfer.  If the amount it too large, the bank may get suspicious and call the client.  Ditto if ten clients empty their accounts on the same day.

Either way, the thief still has to get the stolen cash out of the bank, within a couple of days at most.  That is risky because accounts owners must provide identity, and cash can be traced across multiple bank transfers.   The thief cannot open thousands of accounts to receive the stolen money.  And so on.

Credit card theft has similar difficulties and risks.

Therefore, it is not surprising that bitcoin thefts are already so common, in spite of the small "market" and the novelty of the concept.  Bitcoin theft must be the hottest thing in the black hacking field now.  Bitcoin is still wearing diapers, and yet bitcoin theft already amounts to well over 500 million dollars -- perhaps more than all the money that has been invested in bitcoin ventures so far (SMBIT, for instance, has got only 50 million).

As bitcoins become more widely used, we can be sure that the hackers who now steal credit cards will turn their weapons to bitcoins. 

[windjc]

Just woke up, any reason for the small spike or just the usual stuff?

Just China being China. Volume dried up on the correction and I think there are some traders eager to jump on the next move. Thing is, that might wind up being the entire "next move". Last time we have a green bar like that on the 1 hr chart it faded into oblivion over the next several hours.

Looks like there is going to be a battle bears vs. bulls in the next week.

[JorgeStolfi]

But we do not need to discuss theory. The MtGOX heist alone stole 5% of all the money in the bitcoin economy.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of other heists; the total may be 10% of all the money.  AFAIK, none of those thieves has been identified, much less caught; and none of those stolen coins were retrieved.

That is 10% of all the money in 5 years, which is 2% per year.

Inflation alone steals 3-9% of our money every year.

Try harder 

Euro inflation is 1% this year, isn't it? But never mind.

Devaluation of bitcoin has stolen ~50% of your money in the last two months.

Your turn. 

[mooncake]

I remember when JorgeStolfi pretended to be unbias towards Bitcoin, and actually enjoyed his rational counter-arguments against BTC.

Me too. But we need to be more understanding though. As human beings, we are all influenced by our emotions and biasness.
When started off, one may be rational. But when nasty comments from others come in, one tend to sway towards a particular view and fortify it. By that time, even when presented with concrete facts, one remains adamant on the view, refusing to admit the inital view was wrong.

[Peter R]

I remember when JorgeStolfi pretended to be unbias towards Bitcoin, and actually enjoyed his rational counter-arguments against BTC.

I thought it was just me, but I agree that Jorge has disappointingly matured to somewhat of a garden variety troll. 

At least he's not pumping Ripple. 

[JayJuanGee]

The benefit  to consumers is that your funds are safe from confiscation by inflation or outright takings.

BTW, DPR got his coins confiscated and people get coins outright taken all the time so maybe re-evaluate your rhetoric.

if you leave your keys in the car it is vulnerable to theft.  Bitcoin is easier to secure than any other exchange medium in the world.

Having read many of your other posts I understand you do not admit when you're wrong so I will leave you whatever last words on this you'd like, however you've now changed the topic, stated your opinion as fact, and not bothered to address any of your earlier mistakes. So it wouldn't really be worth the effort to continue correcting you.

Keyser is making my arguments for me.

I will add that I don't think bitcoin is as easy to secure as many of you think. Someone with a lot of experience knows how to secure themselves, sure, but the vast majority of people are going to remain vulnerable to losing coins from hardware failure and hacking. I'm sure plenty of people are not going to see the advantage of bitcoin over just using a credit card. The merchant pays all the fees, and since it's the consumer doing the buying, nobody cares about the merchant. That's assuming you pay off the credit card every month, otherwise you are borrowing money and are rightfully charged for that.

In my opinion, the real future of bitcoin lies in the ability to send large amounts of value in a short amount of time, not to make small transactions that are immediately converted to dollars to avoid being subject to volatility. Then again, once the bitcoins get there, they will probably be immediately sold for the same reason the merchants are immediately selling them: to avoid volatility.

I am NOT much of a technical geek; however, currently, I am of the sense that bitcoin has the potential to be very secure - whether online storage or offline storage, so long as the storage and various abilities to spend, save, transfer, and to keep track of one's personal coins becomes more user friendly.  If some apps can be developed to make these matters easier to use without having to keep track of a zillion passwords or a zillion addresses, then easy user interface has the potential to cause bitcoin to be very secure.      In current times, bitcoin seems to be technically complicated b/c there are so many different apps and addresses and keys - which is likely going to cause less security.. in my humble bumble opinion.

[dnaleor]

trendline is now situated at 503 USD. We are on the verge of breaking it again.
Will we stay above it now?

edit: 531 USD. Drew it wrong

[octaft]

I remember when JorgeStolfi pretended to be unbias towards Bitcoin, and actually enjoyed his rational counter-arguments against BTC.

Me too. But we need to be more understanding though. As human beings, we are all influenced by our emotions and biasness.
When started off, one may be rational. But when nasty comments from others come in, one tend to sway towards a particular view and fortify it. By that time, even when presented with concrete facts, one remains adamant on the view, refusing to admit the inital view was wrong.

You do realize that goes both ways, right?

[xulescu]

But we do not need to discuss theory. The MtGOX heist alone stole 5% of all the money in the bitcoin economy.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of other heists; the total may be 10% of all the money.  AFAIK, none of those thieves has been identified, much less caught; and none of those stolen coins were retrieved.

That is 10% of all the money in 5 years, which is 2% per year.

Inflation alone steals 3-9% of our money every year.

Try harder 

Euro inflation is 1% this year, isn't it? But never mind.

Devaluation of bitcoin has stolen ~50% of your money in the last two months.

Your turn. 

Cool story bro. All of the US-EU-China or pretty much any government now for that matter, they all report meaningless, irrelevant, hedonically adjusted numbers. It's lotto. Just like the jobs Thursday/Friday. It's surreal suspended disbelief. It's a group hallucination.

In the last four months I bet on a correction in the exponential depreciation of the USD and managed to almost double "my money", market value. Don't go all in. Don't go all out. It's easy.

[mooncake]

I remember when JorgeStolfi pretended to be unbias towards Bitcoin, and actually enjoyed his rational counter-arguments against BTC.

Me too. But we need to be more understanding though. As human beings, we are all influenced by our emotions and biasness.
When started off, one may be rational. But when nasty comments from others come in, one tend to sway towards a particular view and fortify it. By that time, even when presented with concrete facts, one remains adamant on the view, refusing to admit the inital view was wrong.

You do realize that goes both ways, right?

Of course, though it takes lots of self-cultivation to achieve non-biasness.

[JayJuanGee]

Largeish hidden buy order on Bitfinex @475 keeping the market up. It just bought 350 btc from me. I wonder how much more its willing to buy from me?

Ouch

ON a mission to lose money, if selling 350 BTC at $475?

[JorgeStolfi]

Every single thing you listed above could be applied to fiat alternatives such as credit cards, online banking services, payment processors etc.

You know this.  Either you know all this or you wilfully ignore everything you disagree with.  I guess you're far too "academic" to let facts get in the way of your agenda.

See above.  Yes, the tools can be used for both bitcoins and bank instruments, BUT the "finalization" of the theft is much easier for bitcoin.

Both logic and the facts thoroughly disprove the claim that bitcoins are easier to secure than the current alternatives.  It resists only as a religious dogma, it seems...

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[JayJuanGee]

Do I need to tell the many ways in which the private keys of a victim can be obtained by a thief?

Please enlighten us.

OK, where do I start? You know what a 'computer' is?  A 'program'?  A 'hacker'? A 'trojan'? A 'key logger'? A 'hardware patch'? A 'memory dump'? A 'covert channel'? A 'malicious wallet software'?  A 'pseudo-pseudo-random number generator'?   A 'social engineer'? A 'disgruntled employee'? A  'naive user'?

Credit card payment authentication requires transmission of authorising data.   Bitcoins are easier to keep safe right now.  But this is programmable money and it's getting safer all the time.  You may not have the vision and imagination to consider what some entrepreneurs will: that enterprising innovators will only make bitcoins safer while credit cards, paypal passwords - every alternative is [cough]heartbleed[/cough] just as vulnerable if not more vulnerable than Bitcoin.

Every single thing you listed above could be applied to fiat alternatives such as credit cards, online banking services, payment processors etc.

You know this.  Either you know all this or you wilfully ignore everything you disagree with.  I guess you're far too "academic" to let facts get in the way of your agenda.

In my opinion you seem to be giving Jorge way too much credit.  Jorge knows that there are equal if NOT greater security problems with various fiat systems, and he seems to be purposefully failing to engage in rigorous analysis in order to make an appropriate comparison.

EDIT: I do see that Jorge made additional posts (above) to attempt some comparison between bitcoin and various other fiat payment systems.  I remain of the conclusion that his comparison are inadequate largely on the basis that the security of bitcoin is continuing to evolve.  Surely there are currently some security issues with bitcoin - yet Jorge seems to be overstating them in order to spread FUD about bitcoin.  I look forward to continued developments in the bitcoin space to make improvements on security b/c certainly, it remains a concern for everyone if a security issue develops or involves an individual user, then the irreversible nature of a transaction can be very problematic if one's coins get in the wrong hands.

[barbs]

But we do not need to discuss theory. The MtGOX heist alone stole 5% of all the money in the bitcoin economy.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of other heists; the total may be 10% of all the money.  AFAIK, none of those thieves has been identified, much less caught; and none of those stolen coins were retrieved.

That is 10% of all the money in 5 years, which is 2% per year.

Inflation alone steals 3-9% of our money every year.

Try harder  

Sorry mate had to call you out on this one.

Stolen btc is not the same as inflation and is a totally unfair comparison.

You steal 2000£from me, it's still 2000£ a year from now, but due to inflation May buy 3% less.

You steal 2000 btc from me it's probably worth more than that next year and you've still stolen it from me and have it in your pocket and there will only ever be x amount etc... Surprised you made this comparison ,. When I go to dump my stolen btc also two years later you don't think it would move the market far more than the stollen 2000£?

[xulescu]

But we do not need to discuss theory. The MtGOX heist alone stole 5% of all the money in the bitcoin economy.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of other heists; the total may be 10% of all the money.  AFAIK, none of those thieves has been identified, much less caught; and none of those stolen coins were retrieved.

That is 10% of all the money in 5 years, which is 2% per year.

Inflation alone steals 3-9% of our money every year.

Try harder  

Sorry mate had to call you out on this one.

Stolen btc is not the same as inflation and is a totally unfair comparison.

You steal 2000£from me, it's still 2000£ a year from now, but due to inflation May buy 3% less.

You steal 2000 btc from me it's probably worth more than that next year and you've still stolen it from me and have it in your pocket and there will only ever be x amount etc... Surprised you made this comparison ,. When I go to dump my stolen btc also two years later you don't think it would move the market far more than the stollen 2000£?

You're not comparing inflation and theft either. You're comparing the theft of GBP versus the theft of BTC. Descriptively you could say Gox applied inflation locally to their customers. Like the FED or other central banks, it doesn't affect everyone (equally).

[Its About Sharing]

But we do not need to discuss theory. The MtGOX heist alone stole 5% of all the money in the bitcoin economy.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of other heists; the total may be 10% of all the money.  AFAIK, none of those thieves has been identified, much less caught; and none of those stolen coins were retrieved.

That is 10% of all the money in 5 years, which is 2% per year.

Inflation alone steals 3-9% of our money every year.

Try harder  

I wish more people understood this basic concept about our existing money system.
People have "comfort" with some money in the bank but are blind to the theft of it via inflation.
And when you mention to them that printing money devalues what they have, they rationally get it, but not at a deep enough level to actually act.

The next level of discussion should be WAR. Once people understand, really understand that war happens as a DIRECT result of just printing money and becoming servants this debt
they will take to the streets. Having war with a finite money supply means people would actually have to change their standard of living, as they would have less money.
The existing system enslaves them and they know it not.

At a very basic level, bitcoin is causing people to question money and with that, the veil is coming down.

Its about sharing

edit - It is a fair point that the Gox, SR, etc. coins that were stolen will become more valuable and hence have more power. But, that is outright theft. Our existing system hides that fact and makes it a part of business as usual.