your confidence in bitcoin

[grondilu]

I'm curious to see the result of this one

[1715410818]

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[­­­Atlas_]

Faith? I don't believe in such a concept. I rather just say it's up to the individual will of its users. I will go as far as to argue that probability of success cannot be reasonably determined.

[no to the gold cult]

Faith? I don't believe in such a concept. I rather just say it's up to the individual will of its users. I will go as far as to argue that probability of success cannot be reasonably determined.

Faith, it's certainly an overrated concept. For me 'Faith' is just a fancy word for 'opinion', and that's fair enough.

In my opinion bitcoin will go very far.

[Alex Beckenham]

I want it to go far, but am sometimes a little afraid that it won't. However I also think that this fear is mostly irrational.

[RodeoX]

I'm no believer in faith either. However it seems to me all you need to create a currency is something hard to counterfeit and a belief in it's value. So, faith is important. After all dollars are just paper, and gold is just a shinny rock. All value beyond that is based on our belief that it will still have value tomorrow.

[gigabytecoin]

Somehow I doubt anybody on this forum will vote for the last two options. If you do, you shouldn't be here.

[Hal]

From The Simpsons, "Homer at the Bat":

Hypnotist: You are all very good players
Team: We are all very good players.
Hypnotist: You will beat Shelbyville.
Team: We will beat Shelbyville.
Hypnotist: You will give 110 percent.
Team: That's impossible no one can give more than 100 percent. By definition that's the most any one can give.

[no to the gold cult]

Answer #4: People are buying dope with it, at good prices too. It's already real.

[Distribution]

I think that the existence of Bitcoin has brought about and will continue to bring about good things. It's kind of like when Ron Paul ran for president. I worked hard to get him elected. But when primary day came, we were all severely disappointed at his showing. I knew a couple people who got really depressed. But I was so happy that he ran. I knew that his run had started a fire, that the idea of liberty would start to catch and the establishment would be shaken. The modern tea party movement (despite being hijacked) started with his campaign, auditing the Fed became a mainstream issue because of the support he gathered, and I can certainly say that his run was a significant turning point in my own life. So what do I mean? We may not be using Bitcoin 50 years from now (although we may) but it's certainly revolutionary enough that it may lay the groundwork for a more widely used virtual decentralized anonymous currency.

[Ian Maxwell]

I feel like "I have my doubts" isn't a great way of putting it---it makes it sound like I don't think Bitcoin is a a solid idea. I actually do think so, in that I think it has as much chance of succeeding as any particular solid idea, which is not that high.

It's rare that you come across free lunches: investments with a high chance of success usually don't have a very high payout for success, and vice versa. Bitcoin is no exception. If it becomes generally accepted, the payout is enormous: not only will we few have dramatically improved the world, but we will all be fabulously wealthy. It would be too much to ask that this was also likely to happen. A 1% chance or so is more than enough, as long as the downside isn't too far down.

I think of it as something like investing in a startup or a high-yield bond.

[gigitrix]

I've purchased some and hold them, as I consider the risk:reward ratio to be one of the safest bets I've ever seen. But only a fool would say this isn't a bet. I also intend to invest my time into providing bitcoin related services, so I suppose I'm going all in really

[dduane]

There is a paradox here.  In order for your investments in bitcoin to become worth something, it is important to spend some of them.  Currencies function and take on value because they are utilized by a community to exchange value.  If we all just hoard them waiting for them to take on value, we'll be waiting a long, long time.  I encourage everyone who wants bitcoins to take on value to set aside a good amount of your holdings for spending of some sort or another, whether it be donations, gaming, or good old exchange of goods and services.  Gavin is doing a brilliant thing for the community of bitcoin users by offering the bitcoin faucet, and ensuring that the faucet's disbursements go out to as many DIFFERENT people as possible.    This is why I've set up Bitcoin Bonus, I want to be able to get bitcoins out to as many people as possible.

[grondilu]

Don't worry.  Even if everyone hoards bitcoin, at some point they will have a strong incentive to sell them.  And there will be some kind of a competition that will take place.  The less greedy will sell first.   There would be no point in hoarding for ever, unless you want to give your bitcoins to your children after you're dead.


I own a few thousands bitcoins.  I can tell you that if one bitcoin was worth 1,000 euros, I would sell mines for sure, so that I can buy a house or something.   Some people would be less greedy and would sell their bitcoins at 500 EUR/BTC, and some other even less greedy.   When people start selling, they stabilize or even lower the price of bitoin, thus adjusting it to its true value.

I do actually sell bitcoins on regular basis, because I think there are better investments than cash anyway, and because I need national currencies to eat and pay my rent.

But I totally think there is no problem with hoarding whatsoever.

[Alex Beckenham]

I need national currencies to eat

Mmm tasty.

[Gavin Andresen]

I just bought two Boston Red Sox tickets from my friend Baer using bitcoins.  They really do work nicely for grassroots, person-to-person transactions, and the beautiful thing is you don't need a lot of people accepting them in one place to get started.

[grondilu]

I just bought two Boston Red Sox tickets from my friend Baer using bitcoins.  They really do work nicely for grassroots, person-to-person transactions, and the beautiful thing is you don't need a lot of people accepting them in one place to get started.

Yeah, as I tried to explain here, bitcoin starts to be usefull with only three people.

[grondilu]

up for newbies.  Please vote.

[Jaime Frontero]

interesting factiod:  according to this poll:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4407.0

... i am the oldest person here, at 59.

faith?  nope.

but i'll tell ya, i've missed a few boats in my life (caught some too) - and this Bitcoin thing just has that feel.  it's the kind of thing i don't want to look back on and realize that it was yet another biggie i didn't see coming.

so call it a hunch, if you like.

besides, i'm a geek.  it doesn't take much of an excuse to get me screwing around with hardware and software...

[gigabytecoin]

interesting factiod:  according to this poll:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4407.0

... i am the oldest person here, at 59.

faith?  nope.

but i'll tell ya, i've missed a few boats in my life (caught some too) - and this Bitcoin thing just has that feel.  it's the kind of thing i don't want to look back on and realize that it was yet another biggie i didn't see coming.

so call it a hunch, if you like.

besides, i'm a geek.  it doesn't take much of an excuse to get me screwing around with hardware and software...

I am about half your age.

I have been on "the internet" for about half of my life or basically ever since there were HTML pages to look at.

One thing is for sure, bitcoin definitely has that "winning feel".

[fetokun]

Voted "I have my doubts, but globally I think it worths a shot" but I'm pretty sure that "it's the best digital currency at present time".

[gigabytecoin]

Voted "I have my doubts, but globally I think it worths a shot" but I'm pretty sure that "it's the best digital currency at present time".

Then why did you vote for the former?

[fetokun]

Because I have my doubts since bitcoin's success is not depending solely on being the best digital currency.

[TiagoTiago]

I might have overstated my confidence a tad with my vote, but Bitcoin kinda works like the placebo effect, the more you believe in it the more it  actually works, so i'll keep my positive thinking.

[Distribution]

I might have overstated my confidence a tad with my vote, but Bitcoin kinda works like the placebo effect, the more you believe in it the more it works, so i'll keep my positive thinking.

Kind of like Federal Reserve notes. I'm pretty happy with what I've been able to do with it so far, now I'm just saving up to buy Atlas's dog.

[grondilu]

up for newbies

[RyNinDaCleM]

Well... I'm a newb, and I voted "I have my doubts", But I also have done the F@H thing, and at least this potentially pays out for the work done, and wear/tear on my hardware.

[phillipsjk]

None of the poll options really express how I feel about bitcoin. I feel it will become very successful, then fail in the medium term. Converting all of my USD (I live in Canada) to bitcoin is about all I want to do with it at the moment. I would not be comfortable keeping my retirement savings in Bitcions.

IMO, BitCoin will fail under the following conditions:

• Wide-spread computer compromise; making wallets non-secret.
• Severe government repression.
• The latency limitations of the protocol become a problem.

I have reason to believe that all 3 may happen in my lifetime.

• Most computers are made in one country (China) and include chips from one company (Intel). Computers are now so complex that nobody knows them from top-to-bottom. The only way to get secure computers is to either simplify the design or prove each  abstraction layer correct. The latter will take about 6 generations.
• We have already seen this with attempts to curb copyright infringement. Domains have been seized, Europe and Australia are working to set up their own firewall modeled loosely on China's great firewall. If you read the Terms Of Service for your residential Internet connection, you will see you actually only get half an Internet connection. Though, as things stabilize, only about 2192 52596 hosts entities will be mining and processing transactions anyway (expect transaction fees when this happens).
  
• Severely isolated groups of people can not process transactions. Similarly, these groups can not check with the network to prevent double-spending. The TCP time-out is about 2 minutes. As long as the protocol relies on IRC, your latency must be lower than 2 minutes (round trip time). This means that any Mars colony can not use Bitcoin. Down here on Earth, it means that the protocol can not take advantage of couriers moving data across borders. Only wallets can move across borders using a physical medium.

[Basiley]

nice idea, but insecure, by EC-usage.
not so much computing resources saved, but timing and mathematically questionable security of EC- signatures/cipher.

[grondilu]

nice idea, but insecure, by EC-usage.
not so much computing resources saved, but timing and mathematically questionable security of EC- signatures/cipher.

What? Is ECDSA weak?

[Basiley]

nice idea, but insecure, by EC-usage.
not so much computing resources saved, but timing and mathematically questionable security of EC- signatures/cipher.

What? Is ECDSA weak?

we're talking in "faith" -related topic.
so, yes, i had NO faith in ECDSA and rest EC-related things. Absolutely.
talking about scientists opinion , prognosis and field practice impact, read crypto papers/newpapers/etc.

[FreeMoney]

nice idea, but insecure, by EC-usage.
not so much computing resources saved, but timing and mathematically questionable security of EC- signatures/cipher.

Lol, how are you going to do a timing attack?

[frozen]

Faith is a rejection of reason and evidence. Bitcoin as money is logically sound, and the evidence so far suggests it will succeed.

These are not guarantees, but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it will fail. Unlike fiat currency which is backed by the violence of the government, bitcoin is backed by the cooperative competition of the internet.

[Basiley]

nice idea, but insecure, by EC-usage.
not so much computing resources saved, but timing and mathematically questionable security of EC- signatures/cipher.

Lol, how are you going to do a timing attack?

why you limit patterns of attack to "timing attack"-approach?
EC cause mathematical concerns about safety at least.
and talking about exploiting of implementations, timing attack isn't only one.

Faith is a rejection of reason and evidence. Bitcoin as money is logically sound, and the evidence so far suggests it will succeed.

These are not guarantees, but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it will fail. Unlike fiat currency which is backed by the violence of the government, bitcoin is backed by the cooperative competition of the internet.

"so far" isn't enough in that case.
actually, talking about money[of ANY kind]/valuables is SERIOUS business. usually.
"i haven't seen it !!" (c) from carhit pedestrian explanation.
note: 90% of security activity is not dealing with problems, but eleminating them BEFORE they outbreak into catastrophe !
ie, evading crisis is best way to deal with it as best way to win war is w/o right war.

[liberty]

What this poll tells us is that no one would get out of the game.

[frozen]

Faith is a rejection of reason and evidence. Bitcoin as money is logically sound, and the evidence so far suggests it will succeed.

These are not guarantees, but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it will fail. Unlike fiat currency which is backed by the violence of the government, bitcoin is backed by the cooperative competition of the internet.

"so far" isn't enough in that case.
actually, talking about money[of ANY kind]/valuables is SERIOUS business. usually.
"i haven't seen it !!" (c) from carhit pedestrian explanation.
note: 90% of security activity is not dealing with problems, but eleminating them BEFORE they outbreak into catastrophe !
ie, evading crisis is best way to deal with it as best way to win war is w/o right war.

Evidence that doesn't exist is irrelevant. "So far" acknowledges the uncertainty, the potential, that evidence might surface to change my mind and declare bitcoin a failure. This has not happened. With that said, I am not selling any of my gold or silver holdings in exchange for btc.

Sure - it would be nice if reward or success of any new venture could be guaranteed and thus the risk eliminated. You need to decide for yourself what your risk tolerance is. If you think you can walk on the sidewalk without getting hit by a car, then by all means. But if you're worried about the car, then do what you need to do to mitigate that risk. If you're walking on the sidewalk, you are probably not concerned about getting hit by an airplane, even though it has a probability > 0.

If the risk of the plane or the car are too much for you, get off the sidewalk.

[grondilu]

The word "faith" seems way more connoted than I thought.  So I replaced it with "confidence".

[Frozenlock]

Almost same characteristics as gold.
In addition:
-You can have backup. (Good luck finding a lost gold coin)
-It's waaaaaay more easy to make a transaction with anyone on the planet

This thing will change the world! 

[billyjoeallen]

If you could buy lottery tickets for a penny, how many would you buy?
if something has a 1% chance at returning 10,000 times your bet, is it a good bet? Hell yeah it is!!!!

[billyjoeallen]

if you could buy lottery tickets for a penny, how many would you buy?
If you had a 1% chance at winning 10,000 times your bet, is it a good bet?
Hell yeah, it is!