Bitcoin press hits, notable sources

[molecular]

Switzerland's 20 minuten online: http://www.20min.ch/finance/news/story/Der-gefaehrliche-Cyber-Dollar-15423297

This piece just earned my price for "most fud-complete article". it has everything (list for english-only speakers):

• link to very negative german bvdw press release
• common misinterpreattion of Jason Calacanis ("most dangerous")
• "mining not profitable due to high swiss power prices" (they used CPU to determine that fact)
• fear-mongering about p2p infecting your computer with shit
• reference to silk-road (not by name)
• "danger of bubble"

The comments are extremely uninformed, just commented a lot pointing to mybitcoin.de, bitcoin.org. Unfortunately they have to be manually accepted ;(

[molecular]

[HUGE FOTO QUOTED]

That came out great!
Everyone who can, please, send some extra business and donations his way.

I wish people would refrain from quoting huge images, especially when it's an early answer right below the original huge image

Great billboard btw, thanks memorydealer, it's HUGE, american style!

[TraderTimm]

Finweek (South African finance publication) article on bitcoin posted by mizerydearia with scanned pics. In the replies I provided a text transcript of the main story.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12672.0

Overall, some technical errors but I thought it was positive for bitcoin.

[molecular]

http://tav.espians.com/why-bitcoin-will-fail-as-a-currency.html

[RBNZ]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10729940

fairly negative article with positive comments.

[jerfelix]

UK's best selling financial magazine:

http://www.moneyweek.com/blog/could-this-virtual-currency-become-the-new-gold-standard-54007

[Vladimir]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10729940

fairly negative article with positive comments.

What a low standard of journalism is accepted by mainstream publications these days. Half of the article above is quoted from Sathoshi's white paper, other half is moaning of the author and a bunch of semi intelligent questions a-la is it scam or is it our future? Lots of white noise.

[proudhon]

http://tav.espians.com/why-bitcoin-will-fail-as-a-currency.html

Summary:  Hoarding will cause any possible bitcoin economy to fail.

[jerfelix]

Nice interview on CBS, Jeff!

http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-504943_162-1111.html

Edit:  I guess this was a live webcast, that I happened to tune into, at the right time.  Not sure where the archive is.

[AbeSkray]

[HUGE FOTO QUOTED]

That came out great!
Everyone who can, please, send some extra business and donations his way.

I wish people would refrain from quoting huge images, especially when it's an early answer right below the original huge image

I agree and I'll do you one better! If you use the "width" argument in an img tag, you can make a huge image more friendly to those of us reading on smaller displays:

Code:

[img width=200]http://i52.tinypic.com/2hi6tex.jpg[/img]

Anyone who wants to view the image at full resolution can right-click and view the image in a separate browser tab.

[charliesheen]

Nice interview on CBS, Jeff!

http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-504943_162-1111.html

Edit:  I guess this was a live webcast, that I happened to tune into, at the right time.  Not sure where the archive is.

http://www.livestream.com/whatstrending/video?clipId=pla_50b35ef0-af89-4e83-9389-8e740a081c84

[2_Thumbs_Up]

http://www.openmarket.org/2011/06/06/bitcoins-four-objections/

The bias is obvious with statements like:
"The unbridgeable gap here is the transition from being used by a small group of hobbyists in barter to being used by financial institutions and the man on the street as a proper money."
I think he means currently existing "financial institutions" and MY "proper money"
Maybe we can help him as a gold/BTC trader.

I left him this response:

I really think this is a misunderstanding of the regression theorem. As I understand it, the regression theorem can only be used to explain the exchange value of a good that is being used in indirect exchange. It can not be used to disqualify  any good from becoming money once it has actually established an exchange value. Even Rothbard said that once a good has exchange value, it does no longer need a use value, quote "On the other hand, while money had to originate as a directly useful commodity, for example, gold, there is no reason, in the light of the regression theorem, why such direct uses must continue afterward for the commodity to be used as money" (http://www.econlib.org/library/NPDBooks/Dolan/dlnFMA12.html).

Bitcons have an exchange value today and is being used in indirect exchange to some degree. I don't think there is anyway to deny that. So the only thing we can do with the regression theorem here, is to apply it to bitcoin and trace back it's (still somewhat limited) current exchange value in time to see where it originates from.

So bitcoin has an exchange value today since it had an exchange value yesterday. It had one yesterday since it had one the day before that and so on. If we go far enough back in time we will come to the first bitcoin exchange that ever took place (a 10.000 BTC pizza as I understand it). Why someone would actually exchange a pizza for bitcoins with no exchange value we can only guess, but reasonably the ownership of bitcoins gave him some sort of utility. According to the regression theorem (as I understand it), this very first transaction is where all of todays bitcoin value originates from. Bitcoins had some use value to someone, and this was enough to also give it an exchange value.

I think austrians should be very excited with bitcoin. It does not derive it's value from any other good (I've heard some people call it a dollar proxy).  Bitcoin is the regression theorem in action, from the beginning.



It doesn't seem to be at the web site though. Does he read through the comments before accepting them?

[DATA COMMANDER]

Bitcoin is backed by $200,000 pizzas imo.

[Terpie]

famulusfusion famulus
I was just interviewed by Businessweek about bitcoin! Thanks @cdixon!
2 hours ago

http://twitter.com/famulusfusion

[cloud9]

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fzhiqiang.org%2Fblog%2Fit%2Ftechnical-document-of-bitcoin.html

[molecular]

http://www.openmarket.org/2011/06/06/bitcoins-four-objections/

The bias is obvious with statements like:
"The unbridgeable gap here is the transition from being used by a small group of hobbyists in barter to being used by financial institutions and the man on the street as a proper money."
I think he means currently existing "financial institutions" and MY "proper money"
Maybe we can help him as a gold/BTC trader.

I left him this response:

I really think this is a misunderstanding of the regression theorem. As I understand it, the regression theorem can only be used to explain the exchange value of a good that is being used in indirect exchange. It can not be used to disqualify  any good from becoming money once it has actually established an exchange value. Even Rothbard said that once a good has exchange value, it does no longer need a use value, quote "On the other hand, while money had to originate as a directly useful commodity, for example, gold, there is no reason, in the light of the regression theorem, why such direct uses must continue afterward for the commodity to be used as money" (http://www.econlib.org/library/NPDBooks/Dolan/dlnFMA12.html).

Bitcons have an exchange value today and is being used in indirect exchange to some degree. I don't think there is anyway to deny that. So the only thing we can do with the regression theorem here, is to apply it to bitcoin and trace back it's (still somewhat limited) current exchange value in time to see where it originates from.

So bitcoin has an exchange value today since it had an exchange value yesterday. It had one yesterday since it had one the day before that and so on. If we go far enough back in time we will come to the first bitcoin exchange that ever took place (a 10.000 BTC pizza as I understand it). Why someone would actually exchange a pizza for bitcoins with no exchange value we can only guess, but reasonably the ownership of bitcoins gave him some sort of utility. According to the regression theorem (as I understand it), this very first transaction is where all of todays bitcoin value originates from. Bitcoins had some use value to someone, and this was enough to also give it an exchange value.

I think austrians should be very excited with bitcoin. It does not derive it's value from any other good (I've heard some people call it a dollar proxy).  Bitcoin is the regression theorem in action, from the beginning.



It doesn't seem to be at the web site though. Does he read through the comments before accepting them?

your comment appeared on the site and also a reply by the authour, quote:

2_Thumbs_Up: Consider the rest of that quote. “On the other hand, while money had to originate as a directly useful commodity, for example, gold, there is no reason, in the light of the regression theorem, why such direct uses must continue afterward for the commodity to be used as money. Once established as a money, gold or gold substitutes can lose or be deprived of their direct use function and still continue as money; for the historical reference to a previous day’s purchasing power will already have been established.” *Once established as a money,* a commodity can lose it’s use value. Note that “lose” implies it had to have had a use value in the first place, and “once established” implies this can only happen after something becomes a money. BitCoins never had use value, and are not widely accepted enough to be called monies (hence my remark about “hobbyists” vs “the man on the street”). That said, I am not convinced that when Rothbard says this he means that free-market monies can lose their use value and remain monies, or he has the paper currency situation in mind.

[Denicen]

Nice interview on CBS, Jeff!

http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-504943_162-1111.html

Edit:  I guess this was a live webcast, that I happened to tune into, at the right time.  Not sure where the archive is.

"The company has a public online ledger of where their currency is going and to whom so that Bitcoins can't be counterfeited. While the ledger is public, what is actually bought by BitCoin users is anyones guess as the ledger is coded and only shows how much money was spent."

Could someone inform CBS that Bitcoin isn't a company or a private organization? I couldn't figure out how to send an email to the author.

[cloud9]

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tageblatt.lu%2Fwirtschaft%2Fstory%2F18120071

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/06_-_June/SUMMARY_JUDGMENTS__Our_daily_legal-news_aggregator_for_June_7/

http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/networking/47679-social-networks-threaten-bank-orthodoxy

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504943_162-20069707-10391715.html

http://memeburn.com/2011/06/10-reasons-why-you-should-get-your-hands-on-some-bitcoins/

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/columns/24853-bitcoin-the-significance-of-decentralised-currency.html

[cindylove]

Nice interview on CBS, Jeff!

http://www.cbsnews.com/2718-504943_162-1111.html

Edit:  I guess this was a live webcast, that I happened to tune into, at the right time.  Not sure where the archive is.

"The company has a public online ledger of where their currency is going and to whom so that Bitcoins can't be counterfeited. While the ledger is public, what is actually bought by BitCoin users is anyones guess as the ledger is coded and only shows how much money was spent."

Could someone inform CBS that Bitcoin isn't a company or a private organization? I couldn't figure out how to send an email to the author.

That article is riddled with errors. However this part causes me great concern:

"Garzik stopped by to talk about how his currency is being used on Silk Road, the online black market for any drug imaginable, and how he is working with the government to turn Bitcoin into a universal online currency."

[xf2_org]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504943_162-20069707-10391715.html

This link now has the full, unedited (thankfully) interview.