At what pricepoint is bitcoin dead?

[mizike29]

Yeah all I know is you need miners to make bitcoins.  If it cost more to make bitcoins then a miner can make selling bitcoins then there will be a problem, which is where were at now.  Then you have the human issue, were down to 3.5 bux a bitcoin, way way too low.  I have used bitcoins to buy things so I know what they can do, but it is not main stream enough to be more then a stock like product, buy and sell to make some cash or mine and pay for your equipment at this point and it would take a long damn time to pay for your decent mining rig at 3.5 dollars a bitcoin.  Difficulty is high, electricity is expensive, bitcoin needs miners period, and it neeeds to make sense to mine or bitcoins will end.  I think there is a possibility bitcoins can survive, but it needs to become way more mainstream and it has to have many advantages over using a dollar, your bank account, paypal, and honestly with what you can buy with bitcoins, theres really not much upside to mining bitcoins to buy products or services or buy bitcoins to buy products and services at this point.  If new egg or amazon or something starting taking them, which will never happen because there too unstable, then bitcoins would gain some momentum.  But I think bitcoin is dead at this point, but it is a very young currency so who knows.  I just think the bubble bust, burst, fall, speculators, scams, and now the value of a bitcoin being so low has pretty much ran its course.  We will see if bitcoin can continue.

[cablepair]

As some have already said Bitcoin is in it's infancy. There have been a lot of growing pains a long the way but it is still growing and I personally believe that we can only go up from here. Bitcoin needs a breakthrough and I have a feeling something will come along soon that will change our trajectory.

I started mining when Bitcoins were 0.85 cents, and I watched them grow to $30+ and watched MTGox get hacked and go from pennies to $17 and watched scandal after scandal and scam after scam and mis management after mis management and now we are stuck in this current rut.

The good news is a lot of people (myself included) still fundamentally believe in this thing, and (I hate to say it but) I thank god for SilkRoad because of it and other functions like it Bitcoin will weather this storm until we reach that break through that we need.

[cryptoxchange]

The good news is a lot of people (myself included) still fundamentally believe in this thing

More than that... we are building things that the price is not yet aware of =)

[cablepair]

I appreciate and support the service you are offering cryptoexchange, and this is really not a jab but a curiosity and maybe you can remedy my ignorance... I do not quite understand why it is a selling point to be "Australian owned and operated" heheh

thanks

[cryptoxchange]

I appreciate and support the service you are offering cryptoexchange, and this is really not a jab but a curiosity and maybe you can remedy my ignorance... I do not quite understand why it is a selling point to be "Australian owned and operated" heheh

thanks

Good question!

The selling point isn't so much that we're from Australia, but rather that Crypto X Change is a legitimate, registered business. Our names are public, you can look us up and find us. We're licensed, compliant with all local laws, and fully-insured. We are as real as a company that exchanges digital currency can be    Also, it lets other Aussi's know that we are local for them and hopefully that will entice their business. But our exchange is fully global with 25+ inbound currencies and 125+ outbound currencies.

Thanks for the question and feel free to PM us whenever. We've updated our launch plan here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48598.0

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

The current price craze is only because of psychological aspect of society. Also Bitcoin is a new, developing market so things like this are expected.

People's moods are like weather - they change often and with little reason.

[proudhon]

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

[kokjo]

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

no no. it just noobs that are panicking.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

Trust or distruct does not affect Bitcoin qualities at all.
It is just people who do not understand them.

Gold is not made significantly less worthy because of any kind of "distrust". Bitcoin is similiar.

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

no no. it just noobs that are panicking.

+1

[memvola]

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

Immense amounts of external dis-trust would have consequences for the exchange rate, but it's only positive trust that is essential for the system to function. Some people will use it nonetheless, just because there is nothing to distrust about its functioning principles. This number could be in the millions or hundreds, and will almost certainly fluctuate. Of course, the number of people using the system directly affects its utility. But there is no reason to think that it will ever be zero. Also, this kind of projects have the ability to slumber until the next affirmation of their usefulness. Take Namecoin for instance; it will always be there as long as the threat created by centralized authority is, and there is nothing that can fix it other than a system like Namecoin itself. In the same manner, I2P or Freenet will never die either. They could, maybe in time, be replaced by a much better idea, but those ideas don't tend to come out easy. Bitcoin has a much better chance of going mainstream, because it has better incentives built in and more utility, especially in the current political atmosphere. Just don't expect this to be an easy ride.

[nimnul]

The current decrease in price is caused by security flaws at exchanges. As more attack vectors are closed by security measures, bitcoin becomes more secure. So we want major vulnerabilities at mtgox, tradehill, btce and bitcoin client to be discovered as early as possible. The price will drop further, but it's for the better future for bitcoin. 

[cbeast]

The current decrease in price is caused by security flaws at exchanges. As more attack vectors are closed by security measures, bitcoin becomes more secure. So we want major vulnerabilities at mtgox, tradehill, btce and bitcoin client to be discovered as early as possible. The price will drop further, but it's for the better future for bitcoin.  

I disagree. I think this price decrease is caused by exchanges that allow high speed trading. HST operates amplifies the law of diminishing returns. The perceived value of the market psychologically affects the perception of bitcoin by the public. Confidence decreases because of algorithms. If we stop HST, then Bitcoin confidence will increase and hence the value.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

The current decrease in price is caused by security flaws at exchanges. As more attack vectors are closed by security measures, bitcoin becomes more secure. So we want major vulnerabilities at mtgox, tradehill, btce and bitcoin client to be discovered as early as possible. The price will drop further, but it's for the better future for bitcoin.  

I disagree. I think this price decrease is caused by exchanges that allow high speed trading.

I think you may be both right, it is caused by both of these things.
Also another one is a lot of bad Bitcoin-related press lately.

As I said, psychology.

[cbeast]

The current decrease in price is caused by security flaws at exchanges. As more attack vectors are closed by security measures, bitcoin becomes more secure. So we want major vulnerabilities at mtgox, tradehill, btce and bitcoin client to be discovered as early as possible. The price will drop further, but it's for the better future for bitcoin.  

I disagree. I think this price decrease is caused by exchanges that allow high speed trading.

I think you may be both right, it is caused by both of these things.
Also another one is a lot of bad Bitcoin-related press lately.

As I said, psychology.

+1
I stand corrected.

[proudhon]

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

Trust or distruct does not affect Bitcoin qualities at all.
It is just people who do not understand them.

Gold is not made significantly less worthy because of any kind of "distrust". Bitcoin is similiar.

Only a technological weakness can really kill Bitcoin.

That's not true at all.  If enough people distrust bitcoin as a medium of exchange and/or a store of value the project will, for all practical purposes, die out.  I believe that's exactly what's going on right now.

no no. it just noobs that are panicking.

+1

I'm not claiming that trust or distrust changes any of bitcoins' built in properties.  I'm saying that distrust in the system as a good way to exchange value and store value will (1) lead to lower and lower prices and (2) fewer and fewer people using it.

[giszmo]

If we stop HST, then Bitcoin confidence will increase and hence the value.

There is a battle going on between professional traders. Those who do fastest at arbitrage pay thousands of $$ for some ms less delay for connections between London and New York. They want to make a 5% profit on days the bitcoin drops 10%. Sure if you want to play in that league, you need HFT done by software, you need your client to be close to the exchange etc. but Bitcoin was not made for those guys and it was neither made for those who are too lame to operate HFT software and the community should neither support nor worry about them. They do a service to stabilize the currency which is good for merchants.
There are also long time speculators like me that bought at 9$ and now again at 5$ and are very tempted to buy again when it's dropping further and HFT is not preventing or causing the long time drop or raise.

I guess bitcoin will be dead if the price falls to a level where too many miners stop and a central bank can do a 50% attack on mining. We did not reach this point yet and I hope that all those miners that switched their machines off would switch on again for the sake of the good cause if that ever happens but for now I'm not worried at all.

[c0ffer]

zero

+1

[fivebells]

[HST traders] do a service to stabilize the currency which is good for merchants.

  I keep hearing this claim, but don't know of any empirical evidence for it.  Can you point me to some?

[jjiimm_64]

zero

this is the correct answer.

[barbarousrelic]

In my opinion the greatest use of Bitcoin is neither making money mining nor making money trading. It is the facilitation of e-commerce.

The only real price point where Bitcoin is dead is when one bitcoin drops below $.01