Will BTC's umbilical cord to USD eventually throttle it?

[gambitv]

Yes, ruletheworld and your point being? As my comment states, newcomers don't have an easy time of it. We are too late to mine, don't have shares 'generating' bitcoin as dividends, only have cash/credit-card/PayPal as options to buy. Trying to get large volumes of coins quickly is not easy.

Why did mineforman go out of his way to help people acquire bitcoins for his group buy?

But I have confidence in the currency, especially with seeing protests on the BBC this morning in many parts of the world against government 'austerity' measures. What is austerity anyway... Gov just deciding to work within their budget? Why are so many reliant on government jobs or handouts? Why not get a real job like the rest of us. But that is another topic altogether, and probably not a popular opinion.

Whats to stop a government making a NATIONAL Pool to try to grab a large slice of the bitcoin mining.

I think a lot of people find it very difficult to get 'cash' of any kind converted to bitcoins.

A recent exposure to the 'group buy' setup in NZ for some of those ASIC usb sticks has shown that there is interest in purchasing via bitcoins, but no easy way in short notice for newcomers to get hold of bitcoins.

Umm, more than half the Bitcoins that will ever go into production are already out there in the hands of people (about 11 million out of 21 million).

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[jubalix]

Some great answers, thanks. Food for thought.

Yes at < $1.5B market cap, BTC could be a mere plaything for a malicious government though perhaps one with a sting in its tail.

I'm an avid reader of all things game theory related too and this is a fascinating scenario when seen in that context.

Since posting, I've noted with interest that Canada has had a small change of tact with regards to Bitcoin, backing up my suspicions that BTC could become a political hot potato.

Jaywaka: BTC is linked to USD in that people trade in that pair, regardless of whether they own USD. It represents a disproportionate fraction of the world's BTC trade when BTC/EUR would be a much better fit for millions of traders or those getting paid in BTC. MtGox right now the soft underbelly of Bitcoin and if we had a robust exchange away from US meddling then it would be less susceptible to collapse.

no because the more the try to buy the higher the price gets, until they run out of money,
one_simply_can't_buy_bitcoins_into_submission_boromir.jpg

[jubalix]

Interesting thread. I enjoyed the pronoun anaphora resolution issue for "it" in the title "Will BTC's umbilical cord to USD eventually throttle it?"

a reparticualist I see

[ruletheworld]

Yes, ruletheworld and your point being? As my comment states, newcomers don't have an easy time of it. We are too late to mine, don't have shares 'generating' bitcoin as dividends, only have cash/credit-card/PayPal as options to buy. Trying to get large volumes of coins quickly is not easy.

Why did mineforman go out of his way to help people acquire bitcoins for his group buy?

But I have confidence in the currency, especially with seeing protests on the BBC this morning in many parts of the world against government 'austerity' measures. What is austerity anyway... Gov just deciding to work within their budget? Why are so many reliant on government jobs or handouts? Why not get a real job like the rest of us. But that is another topic altogether, and probably not a popular opinion.

Whats to stop a government making a NATIONAL Pool to try to grab a large slice of the bitcoin mining.

I think a lot of people find it very difficult to get 'cash' of any kind converted to bitcoins.

A recent exposure to the 'group buy' setup in NZ for some of those ASIC usb sticks has shown that there is interest in purchasing via bitcoins, but no easy way in short notice for newcomers to get hold of bitcoins.

Umm, more than half the Bitcoins that will ever go into production are already out there in the hands of people (about 11 million out of 21 million).

My point being it isn't going to be easy for any government to to set up a massive mining ring and try to manipulate Bitcoin. The Bitcoin network already has more processing power than the top 500 supercomputers.

Even if cash is the only option to get Bitcoin now, it's value is purely supply-demand based. How do you know we are too late to the game? It is hard to predict the future demand for something like Bitcoin.

[niothor]

My point being it isn't going to be easy for any government to to set up a massive mining ring and try to manipulate Bitcoin. The Bitcoin network already has more processing power than the top 500 supercomputers.

Even if cash is the only option to get Bitcoin now, it's value is purely supply-demand based. How do you know we are too late to the game? It is hard to predict the future demand for something like Bitcoin.

Lets not get into this but the total computing power of the network is 0 FLOPS. Unless there is still somebody  cpu mining