Down, down, down, down, down

[Armis]

hahhahaaa, you do know we are in a thread titled "Down, down, down, down, down ..."?

Yes, a troll thread started by an idiot who didn't even know the difficulty goes down when fewer people are mining.

You don't need to be a btc genius to recognize a falling btc price, he got that right and that's the one that count. 

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[darkmule]

The answer isn't "NO EXCHANGES", instead it's "MORE GOOD EXCHANGES".

I'd be interested in seeing at least one good exchange.  I suppose one is more than zero.

By that, I mean one run like an actual currency exchange.  I'd welcome an exchange run by people with actual experience running real currency exchanges.  So far, pretty much everything out there is amateur hour bullshit. 

I'd like to see an existing currency exchange with a proven track record pick up BTC, but the current lengthy spate of scandal after scandal and swindle after swindle is increasingly giving BTC a bad name.  A dangerously naive community like the BTC community, that would willingly put money into Gox as it was obviously floundering, is going to contribute to similar swindles in the future, as they don't seem to learn a damn thing.  The same idiots defending pirateat40's Ponzi scam were also attacking people pointing out Gox's obvious insolvency.  They'll probably be lining up to defend the next crook, while lining up to line his pockets.

In any event, it isn't exactly helping BTC's claim to be trying to provide an alternative to the corrupt banking system when most of its "institutions" are already as corrupt right out of the gate.

This isn't attacking BTC.  The protocol is rock solid.

It's the people that are fucked.

[aminorex]

Let's say everyone removes their coins from exchanges, in fact let's remove exchanges from the example altogether, what is the up and down side?

1) all new crypto becomes forever unheard of.

Why?  What prevents people from buying and selling without exchanges?  localbitcoin.com is a wonderful example of a channel for exchange which is not an exchange, but a non-dealing broker.
Do people stop communicating when facebook goes down?  No, they use email or phones or sms or face to face or skype or whatever.  Speculators depend on exchanges.  Users don't need them.
Speculators don't matter.  Users matter.

2) all cryptocurrencies including btc no longer have 'common' market values, presently there is the bitstamp value, the coinbase value, the btc-e value, and you have various values on localbitcoin.  without the exchanges then there are literally thousands of values (none right and none wrong)

That's no worse than today.  If you can't arb without excessive friction and risk, there will always be variance in the local bbo.  It's a business opportunity for those who do the arb, and thus make the market more efficient.  Business opportunities are good for Bitcoin.

3) so now with all of the different values who will get into the business of dealing with btc?  if it has no stability or reliability or standard  how do you set your prices

There will never be "stability" in bitcoin until it stops growing.  So give up on that right now.  You set your prices in accordance with your interests under present market conditions. Typically prices will be set in local fiat, and a service provider will lock-in exchange rates for the buyer and seller.  Pricing in BTC is relatively rare and usually very dynamic.  That wouldn't change in any way.

4) why would you buy any more than you actually need for immediate use?

Because it's a good investment.  You don't need an exchange to sell it.

5) if you only buy what you immediately need, and the quantity of new btc is always increasing, it will result in oversupply of btc

No, because the volume of transactions in BTC is growing faster.

The answer isn't "NO EXCHANGES", instead it's "MORE GOOD EXCHANGES".

Here we can agree.  I am not claiming that exchanges are not useful.  I don't think the lack of exchanges would much impact the value, the utility, and hence the price of bitcoin.

[Armis]

Let's say everyone removes their coins from exchanges, in fact let's remove exchanges from the example altogether, what is the up and down side?

1) all new crypto becomes forever unheard of.

Why?  What prevents people from buying and selling without exchanges?  localbitcoin.com is a wonderful example of a channel for exchange which is not an exchange, but a non-dealing broker.

Do people stop communicating when facebook goes down?  No, they use email or phones or sms or face to face or skype or whatever.  Speculators depend on exchanges.  Users don't need them.

Speculators don't matter.  Users matter.

They are not "prevented" from buying and selling, but the scale of the market in which buying and selling is vastly reduced without it.  

Your facebook analogy is way off, a more appropriate one would be if there was no long-distance or regional calling or mail service, that would not stop communications would it, and the answer is no but you can clearly see that global business would take a real beating.

Speculators are users too, why would you break them out of the mix for exchanges but include them in the mix for localbitcoin, 99% of the sellers there are speculators.

2) all cryptocurrencies including btc no longer have 'common' market values, presently there is the bitstamp value, the coinbase value, the btc-e value, and you have various values on localbitcoin.  without the exchanges then there are literally thousands of values (none right and none wrong)


That's no worse than today.  If you can't arb without excessive friction and risk, there will always be variance in the local bbo.  It's a business opportunity for those who do the arb, and thus make the market more efficient.  Business opportunities are good for Bitcoin.

Trustworthy business opportunities are good for bitcoin, not untrustworthy businesses

3) so now with all of the different values who will get into the business of dealing with btc?  if it has no stability or reliability or standard  how do you set your prices


There will never be "stability" in bitcoin until it stops growing.  So give up on that right now.  You set your prices in accordance with your interests under present market conditions. Typically prices will be set in local fiat, and a service provider will lock-in exchange rates for the buyer and seller.  Pricing in BTC is relatively rare and usually very dynamic.  That wouldn't change in any way.

You can't set your price under "present market conditions" because that implies major markets, not a 1000 unfederated minor markets.    

Even worse, you choose to tie or set your btc to local fiat, so if my local fiat is stronger than your local fiat I could buy your local fiat for next to nothing, buy up your btc for next to nothing, then resell the btc for my (big) local fiat.  Oh, then I'll tell others that I could do it for them too ... exchange is formed

4) why would you buy any more than you actually need for immediate use?


Because it's a good investment.  You don't need an exchange to sell it.

If it can be purchased btc immediately P2P, if the prices are always vastly different one from another, and if I always have the option to use fiat, why INVEST in btc?  That is not a "good investment" if anything the good investment is in the fiat that could buy the btc at anytime, that's the stable and reliable standard in the picture.
 

5) if you only buy what you immediately need, and the quantity of new btc is always increasing, it will result in oversupply of btc


No, because the volume of transactions in BTC is growing faster.

Get out the charts my friend, btc volume average have been going down across the board.    
http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

The answer isn't "NO EXCHANGES", instead it's "MORE GOOD EXCHANGES".


Here we can agree.  I am not claiming that exchanges are not useful.  I don't think the lack of exchanges would much impact the value, the utility, and hence the price of bitcoin.

Each and every cryptocurrency that I know of wants to be on an exchange, in fact for most of them the more the better.   I don't know of one that thinks their currency would fair better NOT being on an exchange.   That validation is real and substantial, when it comes from a good exchange it is actually better. 

[aminorex]

5) if you only buy what you immediately need, and the quantity of new btc is always increasing, it will result in oversupply of btc


No, because the volume of transactions in BTC is growing faster.

Get out the charts my friend, btc volume average have been going down across the board.    
http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

That is so wrong.  You're looking at exchange volumes which have nothing to do with the value of BTC.  Those only relate to the exchange price, which is almost always deviating from value.

The only transactions that matter are the ones on the blockchain, where actual goods and services are transacted.  Exchanges are just parasitic speculation vehicles.

As for the aspirations of other crypto to be on exchanges, other crypto are pretty worthless in the real economy, so it doesn't surprise me that they seek valuation via speculation. What else have they got going for them?