[2013-11-27] BBC - Bitcoin virtual currency breaks $1,000 mark

[Mowcore]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25120731

Ok, now the world is watching for the massive pop they expect to see.....

[Sam-Os]

Will it pop? Or is this for real...

[Mowcore]

I'm keeping my bitcoins.

[P_Shep]

Don't like this bit: "Bitcoin's value has been rising rapidly since a US Senate committee hearing earlier this month."

It's been rising WELL before that!

[LiteCoinGuy]

could "crash" to "only" 400 - 500 dollars...thats the normal way bitcoin goes 

[Carlton Banks]

This is an interesting story from the BBC...

If you look all over their news site, you'll find it on the front page, the Business section and the Technology section. So they're acknowledging the significance of this, even if it's only a main "picture" story in the Tech section.

Also, relentlessly factual on the whole. No other information except that relating to the price. Could this be a new era of non-discriminatory Bitcoin coverage from the established news media? Possibly, lets see how the coverage looks as things develop further (starting to sound like the media myself, lol).

[freedomno1]

Well guess Its time to go to will you sell at 1000 dollar thread and say a bit lol

[solex]

That article is about as negative as it is possible to be while reporting good news. I bet they were gushing all over Google when its share price topped $1,000.

They are incapable of trying to understand Bitcoin properly, because it is so revolutionary.

[freedomno1]

That article is about as negative as it is possible to be while reporting good news. I bet they were gushing all over Google when its share price topped $1,000.

They are incapable of trying to understand Bitcoin properly, because it is so revolutionary.

Well to be technical I heard quite a few times that the Chinese Yuan had the bitcoin value hit 1000 already a while back so they already fact checked one wrong

Note first line of  BBC article
The value of a single bitcoin has surpassed $1,000 (£613) for the first time, according to MTGox, one of the virtual currency's major exchanges.

(Mtgox is incorrect lol)

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bitcoin-one-thousand/

XD

[LiteCoinGuy]

1000 USD for a 0.8.5 version, pretty good i guess 

[exstasie]

My coworker predicted $6k by then end of 2014 a few weeks ago...not looking so crazy after all.

[Carlton Banks]

The article has been re-written in just a few hours.


The current version now includes Mike Hearn quotes:

"For Bitcoin to go from zero to $1,000 in just five years has been amazing to watch,"

"It's easy to forget that Bitcoin's true value is not in an arbitrary exchange rate, but in its ability to enable new applications and services which aren't possible with today's payment networks."

The latter of which makes it really easy for the uninformed to answer the question unimaginatively ("How is buying drugs and assassinations a useful innovation?")


They've also brushed up the subtley of the gentle disinformation in their "How Bitcoin works" side piece (which wasn't in the initial article). Highlights of which (for me) are:

"...it may be best to think of its units being virtual tokens rather than physical coins or notes"  

"To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called "mining" must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution."

The first quote is an obvious attempt to belittle the idea that you should take cryptocurrency seriously as money. The second is an attempt to add unnecessary detail to the mining description, to make it sound overly enigmatic (and therefore difficult to trust, how very ironic).


There's also talk of "panic sell-offs in April", emphasis on price "plummets" and "soaring", and of course there has been the requisite addition of the Silk Road and of paedophilia connections (which there has still been no evidence backing it, although that doesn't mean it's not true).



So, an objective piece reporting the price movements has been turned into another exercise in FUD subtlety, all in the space of a few hours. I think the editorial policy is either that they object to cryptocurrency, or that they want to give themselves the chance to buy in while it's still cheap. I suspect that everyone's beginning to realise that it cannot be stopped.

[Mike Hearn]

I think a simpler explanation is that journalists love a human interest angle that can turn an otherwise dry story about finance and technology into something more exciting (ooooh criminals! oooh price swings!). And the mining part is just the usual thing you see when trying to compress a hugely complicated topic down into a couple of sentences. I've seen much worse attempts.

I also wrote a longer piece for them which should be going live today. It focuses on Bitcoin's innovation vs the lack of it from the banking sector.

[solex]

I think a simpler explanation is that journalists love a human interest angle that can turn an otherwise dry story about finance and technology into something more exciting (ooooh criminals! oooh price swings!). And the mining part is just the usual thing you see when trying to compress a hugely complicated topic down into a couple of sentences. I've seen much worse attempts.

I also wrote a longer piece for them which should be going live today. It focuses on Bitcoin's innovation vs the lack of it from the banking sector.

Saw the quote of yours about banks moving fiat by steamboat, or gold by camels in Mongolia.    Exactly the message they need to illustrate that we have a 19th century banking system in a 21st century world.

[Carlton Banks]

I think a simpler explanation is that journalists love a human interest angle that can turn an otherwise dry story about finance and technology into something more exciting (ooooh criminals! oooh price swings!). And the mining part is just the usual thing you see when trying to compress a hugely complicated topic down into a couple of sentences. I've seen much worse attempts.

More of a naive explanation there, Mike. Even without the users projecting their political opinions onto Bitcoin, the utility it allows upsets established politics as much as it does established professions and industries. Anyone who believes the BBC are completely unbiased politically need to look a little closer (and/or wider).

Don't get me wrong though, this type of article can't help but highlight the unassailable basic facts, so those more independent minded and imaginative people that do read it are quite likely to research the issue elsewhere anyway.

[hieroglyph]

Waiting for a bubble to pop... priceless.  I don't think there will be a pop anytime soon mainly because the "journalists" have been wrong time and time again and they continue to do so with no regrets which leads me to believe it is a safe bet against them.

[freedomno1]

Waiting for a bubble to pop... priceless.  I don't think there will be a pop anytime soon mainly because the "journalists" have been wrong time and time again and they continue to do so with no regrets which leads me to believe it is a safe bet against them.

You just need to change the channel and go to the RT instead