Watching amateur finance types flail

[Quantumplation]

It's "A Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game"

Correct.  But it's "An MMORPG".  You don't say the entire acronym out in your head when you read it, hence you pronounce it as if it started with a vowel.  It's the same as something like "Give me an M!  Give me a U!".  M is a consonant, but when you say the actual letter, it begins with a vowel.  U is a vowel, but when you say the actual letter, it starts with a consonant.

[elggawf]

It's "A Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game"

It's "an massively waste of time to still be arguing about this" when it's not germane to the economics of Bitcoin.

Also.

[Piper67]

It's "A Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game"

Correct.  But it's "An MMORPG".  You don't say the entire acronym out in your head when you read it, hence you pronounce it as if it started with a vowel.  It's the same as something like "Give me an M!  Give me a U!".  M is a consonant, but when you say the actual letter, it begins with a vowel.  U is a vowel, but when you say the actual letter, it starts with a consonant.

Technically, the sound of U doesn't start with a consonant, but with a diphthong, which for the purposes of the a/an rule is about the same thing... A Euro, not an Euro.

And this is only because we're all bored out of our minds waiting for 15:00 Zulu (gmt), and then we can sit and watch the fireworks.

[tomcollins]

People are so stupid. No one cares about your pathetic analysis. You know nothing about this technology, and the reason for the speculation and market bumps is because people like YOU.AKA People who don't understand what this is, and will probably never will. Just keep "speculating", god knows that's what you do best.    

But didn't you see the chart?  That means it must be a ponzi scheme!

[bitcoin0918]

Nagle: Those are quite possibly some of the worst straw men I've seen against bitcoin. They all boil down to, "if bitcoin is supposed to be X, then it is failing miserably at that!" But bitcoin is not supposed to be X, or Y, or Z, or any of the other things you claim it to be.

Seeing as I am coming into this discussion 8 pages late, I will leave it at that, as others have already elaborated on the specifics (e.g. user ezl above).

[bitcoinBull]

It's "A Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game"

Correct.  But it's "An MMORPG".  You don't say the entire acronym out in your head when you read it, hence you pronounce it as if it started with a vowel.  It's the same as something like "Give me an M!  Give me a U!".  M is a consonant, but when you say the actual letter, it begins with a vowel.  U is a vowel, but when you say the actual letter, it starts with a consonant.

Technically, the sound of U doesn't start with a consonant, but with a diphthong, which for the purposes of the a/an rule is about the same thing... A Euro, not an Euro.

And this is only because we're all bored out of our minds waiting for 15:00 Zulu (gmt), and then we can sit and watch the fireworks.

Now you have me wondering how to pronounce "diphthong".

[Kurtz79]

I'm John Nagle, the person behind Downside....

My eyes !!!


I can't see anymore!

[TraderTimm]

I prefer this chart:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22404.0

[relative]

it's funny what qualifies as a rebuttal on this board.
the best thing you can come up with "you don't understand this technology".

well, you don't understand manias. you assign value to something based on the potential of a technology.
good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania

if you leave fantasies of what "could be" aside the fundamentals dont justify a price exceeding 1/100th of what is currently paid for a bitcoin. probably less.

rest of it here http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=21702.0

[bitcoin0918]

it's funny what qualifies as a rebuttal on this board.
the best thing you can come up with "you don't understand this technology".

well, you don't understand manias. you assign value to something based on the potential of a technology.
good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania

if you leave fantasies of what "could be" aside the fundamentals dont justify a price exceeding 1/100th of what is currently paid for a bitcoin. probably less.

rest of it here http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=21702.0

Bitcoin could certainly be in a mania, or in a bubble, or could ultimately fail to be widely adopted, etc, but it is certainly not a ponzi scheme, not an investment, not meant for speculation, does not pay a return, and is not a business. So much for Nagle's arguments.

[bitcoinBull]

it's funny what qualifies as a rebuttal on this board.
the best thing you can come up with "you don't understand this technology".

well, you don't understand manias. you assign value to something based on the potential of a technology.
good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania

if you leave fantasies of what "could be" aside the fundamentals dont justify a price exceeding 1/100th of what is currently paid for a bitcoin. probably less.

rest of it here http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=21702.0

Then we should argue about what the "fundamentals" are of bitcoin.  Your argument seems to be that the fundamentals are some napkin estimates of money supply.

I argue the fundamental is the network difficulty, or hash rate:  http://bitcoin.sipa.be

Growth in the fundamental sustains the rise in price.  At least, it has thus far.

[proudhon]

it's funny what qualifies as a rebuttal on this board.
the best thing you can come up with "you don't understand this technology".

well, you don't understand manias. you assign value to something based on the potential of a technology.
good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania

if you leave fantasies of what "could be" aside the fundamentals dont justify a price exceeding 1/100th of what is currently paid for a bitcoin. probably less.

rest of it here http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=21702.0

Do you agree or disagree with this line of argument?

P1:  If something's exchange-value is derived from what enough people believe it's use-value could be in the future, and enough people belief it will be more useful in the future, then it's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value. (i.e. price is largely determined by speculation).
P2:  Bitcoin's exchange-value is derived from what enough people believe it's use-value could be in the future, and enough people belief it will be more useful in the future.
C1:  Therefore, Bitcoin's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value.

And:

P3:  If something's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value, then it is probably bad*.
P4:  Bitcoin's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value.
C2:  Therefore, Bitcoin is probably bad.

*I'm using 'is probably bad' as shorthand for whatever negative thing you want to say about bitcoin.  So, you might replace 'is bad' with 'will probably fail' or 'will probably collapse in the near future', or whatever.

[relative]

did you even read it? he said pump-and-dump, not ponzi.
if you wanna pick nits, the entire system qualifies as a pyramid scheme UNLESS bitcoin is hugely successful. I've gone into the likelihood of that happening, and how "huge" this success would have to be in my other thread.

not an investment, not meant for speculation, does not pay a return, and is not a busines

well, people here treat it as all of that. if something is not "meant" to be for speculation, but all it is currently used for is speculation, I might just as well see whether this speculation might pay off and compare it to other "investments".

[bitcoin0918]

did you even read it? he said pump-and-dump, not ponzi.

Apparently it is you who didn't read it. Top of the page at Nagle's site: Bitcoin looks like a Ponzi scheme.

Apparently, someone stealing a bunch of bitcoins and trying to sell them all at once, causing it to go bidless, is equivalent to a pump-and-dump or a Ponzi scheme. Except that neither is the case.

Just because bitcoin looks like X, Y, or Z, doesn't mean it is any of those. An analysis of the fundamental properties of bitcoin is necessary to determine what it is. But you won't fund any such deep analysis from Nagle. Just a stupid cherry-picked chart.

[elggawf]

it's funny what qualifies as a rebuttal on this board.
the best thing you can come up with "you don't understand this technology".

No, in the context that was used, that's a valid rebuttal. Anything that compares Bitcoin to centralized services that were shutdown or went bust obviously doesn't understand Bitcoin at all, because Bitcoin is not any more related to these services than it is Paypal.

What's fucktarded is people arguing about inane bullshit like the correct grammar for "an MMORPG" like it even has any place in the discussion. Ad hominem attacks make Bitcoin cheerleaders absolutely no better than the naysayers who can only say something like "well they're a Bitcoin user so honestly they don't know anything."

[relative]

Then we should argue about what the "fundamentals" are of bitcoin.  Your argument seems to be that the fundamentals are some napkin estimates of money supply.

I tried to treat botcoin as what it claims to be: a monetary system.
if you have a better way of judging a monetary system please add to that thread.

I argue the fundamental is the network difficulty, or hash rate:  http://bitcoin.sipa.be

I don't claim to have the holy grail on bitcoin fundamentals and my thread was just rough estimates, but the hash rate definitely is not a "fundamental" (of the underlying value!) of bitcoin.

the difficulty results from the hash rate which is a function of the price, because miners (should) only install hashing power that is still profitable.
i.e. hash rate is a function of BTC/USD, not the other way around.

[relative]

Do you agree or disagree with this line of argument?

P1:  If something's exchange-value is derived from what enough people believe it's use-value could be in the future, and enough people belief it will be more useful in the future, then it's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value. (i.e. price is largely determined by speculation).
P2:  Bitcoin's exchange-value is derived from what enough people believe it's use-value could be in the future, and enough people belief it will be more useful in the future.
C1:  Therefore, Bitcoin's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value.

agree.

And:

P3:  If something's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value, then it is probably bad*.
P4:  Bitcoin's exchange-value is greater than it's current use-value.
C2:  Therefore, Bitcoin is probably bad.

don't agree.
my whole argument is that these prices are ridiculous. whether bitcoin as a technology holds any merit (aka is "not bad") remains to be seen. we still have railroads even though there was a mania.

my guess is that bitcoin isn't even the myspace of e-currencies but one of its predecessors.

[Justsomeforumuser]

I just wanted to +1 the OP / John Nagle.

If it helps - there have been people (me, e.g. but obviously also others, but I don't have their nick or posts atm) bringing up the same arguments (about lack of backing, ponzi nature, bubble look, no economy exists etc) BEFORE the 30$ => 10$ "pop".

I also recently posted the core problem of BTC again(i.e. someone has to keep propping the thing up with his own real world cash to continue the merry go round) in a thread that remained pretty much unaddressed.

[bitcoinBull]

the difficulty results from the hash rate which is a function of the price, because miners (should) only install hashing power that is still profitable.
i.e. hash rate is a function of BTC/USD, not the other way around.

Well, miners were installing hash power long before BTC even had a price.  And difficulty rose faster than the price.  There will always be some miners willing to hash at a short-term loss for the potential reward of long-term gains.  That's how all business works.

History does not show the hash rate to be a one-way function of BTC/USD.  They are correlated indicators demonstrating two-way causality.

[TraderTimm]

I just wanted to +1 the OP / John Nagle.

If it helps - there have been people (me, e.g. but obviously also others, but I don't have their nick or posts atm) bringing up the same arguments (about lack of backing, ponzi nature, bubble look, no economy exists etc) BEFORE the 30$ => 10$ "pop".

I also recently posted the core problem of BTC again(i.e. someone has to keep propping the thing up with his own real world cash to continue the merry go round) in a thread that remained pretty much unaddressed.

Cool, so if we trade above 30 you're wrong?

I'd just like to hear the qualifier of where your thesis falls apart.