US media frenzy hasn't even begun yet

[Rival]

When I hear the talking heads talk about bitcoin, all I hear is this from Newsweek 1995:

The Internet? Bah!
Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.Baloney.

Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Consider today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them–one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connectios, try again later.”

Won’t the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.

Point and click:Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I’ll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.

[wasserman99]

If we are still early adopters (which I think is proven that we still are) it is a great time to buy Bitcoin, even at $200!

if that's the advice you give, you ought to be careful to really emphasize the short-term risk of buying at this price. it's easy to become a bagholder, just waiting to break even, following a rally like this. i am not advising anyone to buy until we level out, wherever that is.

[BitChick]

If we are still early adopters (which I think is proven that we still are) it is a great time to buy Bitcoin, even at $200!

if that's the advice you give, you ought to be careful to really emphasize the short-term risk of buying at this price. it's easy to become a bagholder, just waiting to break even, following a rally like this. i am not advising anyone to buy until we level out, wherever that is.

Having bought some on the last upward swing I can speak with experience.  Just buy and hold and ride out the waves.  We are all still so early in this.  I don't think most people "get it" on this board yet.

Skip ahead about a year and we will be laughing that we thought $200 was overpriced.

But of course I always temper any advise to friends that they could "lose it all" and that it is "risky" and I tell them about how I have had ups and downs.  It is just part of the fun of it all.

[Rival]

If we are still early adopters (which I think is proven that we still are) it is a great time to buy Bitcoin, even at $200!

if that's the advice you give, you ought to be careful to really emphasize the short-term risk of buying at this price. it's easy to become a bagholder, just waiting to break even, following a rally like this. i am not advising anyone to buy until we level out, wherever that is.

If you wait until it is safe you will make nothing. Risk = reward.

[wasserman99]

If we are still early adopters (which I think is proven that we still are) it is a great time to buy Bitcoin, even at $200!

if that's the advice you give, you ought to be careful to really emphasize the short-term risk of buying at this price. it's easy to become a bagholder, just waiting to break even, following a rally like this. i am not advising anyone to buy until we level out, wherever that is.

If you wait until it is safe you will make nothing. Risk = reward.

that's not what i was saying. any investment involves risk. the point is one should do a risk/reward analysis before buying -- especially if expecting short-term gains, as most green investors do -- instead of simply listening to this "buy buy buy" after bitcoin is up like 60% in 2.5 weeks.

[Rival]

If we are still early adopters (which I think is proven that we still are) it is a great time to buy Bitcoin, even at $200!

if that's the advice you give, you ought to be careful to really emphasize the short-term risk of buying at this price. it's easy to become a bagholder, just waiting to break even, following a rally like this. i am not advising anyone to buy until we level out, wherever that is.

If you wait until it is safe you will make nothing. Risk = reward.

that's not what i was saying. any investment involves risk. the point is one should do a risk/reward analysis before buying -- especially if expecting short-term gains, as most green investors do -- instead of simply listening to this "buy buy buy" after bitcoin is up like 60% in 2.5 weeks.

I think I do understand what you are saying. You are suggesting that the risk at this point might not be worth the reward. There appear to be plenty willing to take the other side of that bet. It could be $1000 in two weeks, and anyone buying today @ $200 is a genius. It could also be @ $50, and those who held their $$$ were geniuses. Only time will tell whether you or they have a better assessment of the risk/reward equation.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Suppose it had just gone up 65% in two weeks...to $20. I think people either see the long-term potential or they don't. If they see it, they know the difference between $13 and $20 (or $130 and $200) is going to look like a rounding error in a few years, as we now view the difference between $0.06 and $0.10.

[impulse]

Skip ahead about a year and we will be laughing that we thought $200 was overpriced.

Unfortunately many of these people were calling it overpriced when it was $15, and some still believe that we are heading back down to those levels. You could laugh at them now, but they will still be trumpeting the coming collapse if bitcoin hits $1000, or $10000. Actually, even more so if it hits those prices. At the end of the day what will hurt most, is that they were here, part of this community, when they had a chance to be among the earliest adopters and instead they blew their opportunity.

[wasserman99]

Suppose it had just gone up 65% in two weeks...to $20. I think people either see the long-term potential or they don't. If they see it, they know the difference between $13 and $20 (or $130 and $200) is going to look like a rounding error in a few years, as we now view the difference between $0.06 and $0.10.

perhaps. but it's important to note that these exponential gains will not last forever. the question is, at what magnitude? you say $70 is a rounding error in a few years... we will see.

[BitChick]

Skip ahead about a year and we will be laughing that we thought $200 was overpriced.

Unfortunately many of these people were calling it overpriced when it was $15, and some still believe that we are heading back down to those levels. You could laugh at them now, but they will still be trumpeting the coming collapse if bitcoin hits $1000, or $10000. Actually, even more so if it hits those prices. At the end of the day what will hurt most, is that they were here, part of this community, when they had a chance to be among the earliest adopters and instead they blew their opportunity.

Yes.  It is better to buy "high" and not regret it then to hope the price goes lower and lose the opportunity.  That is my thinking anyways.

Bitcoin seems to have a mind of it's own.  It is tricky to predict it's movement.  If we are confident that the price is going to rise to higher levels at any point then just buy and hold.  That seems like the lowest risk move of all.  Granted, it would be nice to take advantage of the peaks and valleys but it is not as easy to do as it sounds.

[tutkarz]

my strategy (and i think its best for most people) is just buy. When price drops - buy even more to average the price. And you have a life and don't need to sit here 24h/day watching graphs and pulling your hairs out of head when you have another missed trade.

[600watt]

When I hear the talking heads talk about bitcoin, all I hear is this from Newsweek 1995:

The Internet? Bah!
Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and (...)

great article. should be included in any textbook, page 1

[ErisDiscordia]

When I hear the talking heads talk about bitcoin, all I hear is this from Newsweek 1995:

The Internet? Bah!
Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.Baloney.

Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Consider today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them–one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connectios, try again later.”

Won’t the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.

Point and click:Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I’ll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.

Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

What’s missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.

Thanks for this! Almost reads like a parody...certainly helps with being able to laugh at todays smug fools

[johnyj]

They will understand that this is a totally different beast, it has never existed in human history: A money with fixed limited supply but have a global instant reach.

And their projection of the price development will also have to readjust: A 100% rise / year against fiat money is a minimal performance, 10x rise is a normal performance, and 100x rise in a year when in good mood  

I think $1000 is possible if it break through ATH. All it takes is just sellers hold their coins to send the price to moon, and many traders here indeed will do so when the time comes

[BitcoinAshley]

All I know is the folks who bought at the top of the $32 bubble are in pretty good shape right now.

Will the folks who bought at the top of the $266 bubble be in good shape in a year or two? Well, I'm not as confident as Men's Wearhouse... but I am strongly convinced of it.

[RationalSpeculator]

Great article about the internet indeed

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

If bitcoin survives, the general trend will likely be up as people and businesses come on board.  The whole concept is very new to the vast majority of people, also known as the "herd".  The herd is skittish because they are unsure.  They bolt at the slightest provocation.  Over time the wild swings will likely smooth out much as most stable currencies.

IMHO, if bitcoin lasts then even buying at this most recent top will eventually pay off.

One strategy is to set aside X-number of dollars every week (an amount you can afford to loose, NOT your lunch money) and exchange it for whatever bitcoin the going rate allows.  This averages everything out.  In the long run good returns result while greatly simplifying efforts.

By "long run" I don't mean a week or a month or two.  Several years and more.  One day you may be quite pleased with the results.

[emanymton]

This forum is full of cheap dilettantes who don't understand the meaning of the word "bubble" and throw it around with the ease of taking a quick piss.

Just have a look at the stock of Microsoft or Google or 3D Systems and notice the growth they've experienced.

Do you know where price of Microsoft stock should be hadn't been for all the stock splits?

Microsoft has split its stock nines times since it went public back in March 1986. Put very, very simply, a company will generally split its stock when its share price becomes too high.

Since Microsoft has had six 2-for-1 splits and three 3-for-1 splits, one original Microsoft share would now be equal to 288 shares today. Interestingly the price of Microsoft's stock at its initial public offering was $21 a share, at the time of writing a share is now around the $23 mark. One original MSFT share would now be worth over $6,000.

http://mashable.com/2010/07/17/microsoft-facts/ This was 2010 info where MSFT was $23/share. Price now is much higher.

So please take that bubble retarded mediocre talk somewhere else. Mainstream media uses this BS "bubble" a lot to describe Bitcoin. I don't need to hear same BS idiocy of infantile twats on this forum also.

Growth is not synonymous with bubble!

It is when it's followed by a crash. The market behavior we have seen pretty much fits the textbook definition.

Definition of 'Bubble'

1. An economic cycle characterized by rapid expansion followed by a contraction.

[keystroke]

When I hear the talking heads talk about bitcoin, all I hear is this from Newsweek 1995:

Nice. That was written by Clifford Stoll too, http://boingboing.net/2010/02/26/curmudgeony-essay-on.html#comment-723356 - he wrote The Cuckoo's Egg which I enjoyed reading ~10 years ago. Details how he tracked a hacker in the 80s who broke into one of the national labs.

[darkmule]

When I hear the talking heads talk about bitcoin, all I hear is this from Newsweek 1995:

Nice. That was written by Clifford Stoll too, http://boingboing.net/2010/02/26/curmudgeony-essay-on.html#comment-723356 - he wrote The Cuckoo's Egg which I enjoyed reading ~10 years ago. Details how he tracked a hacker in the 80s who broke into one of the national labs.

I despised him even back when that book came out.  He actually uncovered the CCC's actions because of his obsession with a $0.75 accounting discrepancy, that ultimately led to the evidence of the intrusions.  Okay, I have to admit that level of attention to detail does display a certain brilliance, but not the sort of brilliance anyone would want at a party.  And despite a great deal of technical skill, he so totally failed to get the Internet and its culture even then, back in the late '80s, that he was basically the symbol of everything I hated.  (It didn't help that I was on the wrong side of the law myself at that time and he was the self-appointed king of Internet cops.)

So when he said that abjectly idiotic shit in Newsweek, I was really not at all surprised.  That was exactly the kind of lame shit he was practically addicted to saying.  He didn't understand Internet culture, so he despised it.  What a surprise.  He still doesn't.