$7 today?!!

[the joint]

I've already reaped my profits.  Waitin' for a dip to re-buy.  Nice to know I have my profits locked in at 7.  Lookin' to pull the trigger again...

[jothan]

Haha man oh man, this shit is like christmas!

I zhouthonged myself a sell at 7.00, hoping its gonna be like christmas !

[Mark Oates]

someone's making a ton of bucks on the 7.07-7.20 bouncy bounce! 

Glad I bought back in then. 

The question remains, how much of this rally is simply anticipation of the CES?  How much will the price fall again after said conference is over?

Mmmneyah... I'm not so sure people are that concerned about CES.

[casascius]

I think at CES, a few people will buy a few bitcoins.  That's about it.  CES is about too many other things than Bitcoin for it to be that big of a deal.  Of course, right now, when $30k or $50k gets dumped into bitcoin by people who have no plans to flip it back as fast as they can, that pushes the price up some and keeps it there.  But we won't know until we get there.

The real reason I believe the price is rising fast, is because the media has finally stopped parroting each another about how "Bitcoin is dead and done", and has moved on to writing about the "bitcoin collapse that never happened".

If you think about it, the only reason we really crashed is because people got (understandably) spooked at large thefts and panicked - a self-sustaining reaction.

Now that we all know not to keep our bitcoins on anonymous websites and hopefully not on our computers either, the whole reason we ever went from $30 to $2 in the first place no longer exists.  And the news headline "new virus mines bitcoins" or "new trojan steals wallets" doesn't phase us anymore.

On top of that, you have people issuing investment advice that people should be keeping a small chunk of their net worth in bitcoins.  A small chunk of even a fraction of the world's investors who'd take advice like that is massively greater than a few hundred grand or a few million sitting between the current price and $30 again.

I would say the train has left.  Good luck waiting around for that deal.  The next big predictable shocker that I believe will stun the value of the Bitcoin again is when the transaction demand overwhelms the P2P network and makes it prohibitive for all but the most valuable transactions, and people will then realize "ok, Bitcoin block chain is not useful for free everyday payments anymore, but now is the backing currency for a bunch of independent banks".  A negative paradigm shift people will have to get over, and maybe it will drop a BTC worth $500 back to one worth $50.

[miscreanity]

Now it's getting uncomfortable. If I weren't using weighted prices for analysis, I'd be ready to sell a good amount of my holdings. Instead, there's still plenty of room for a correction into stability by the end of the week. There's also a lot of air above us now; $30 seems to be beckoning.

Bitcoin may be exhibiting early signs of a giffen good. If so, it'll make gold's rise seem quaint by comparison (as if it hasn't already).

Major points to watch:

• Bit-pay showcasing at the CES
• Federal Reserve QE3 or "inflation targeting"
• Rapid succession of capital control implementation

There are others, but those could cause a magnitude 9.2 in the Bitcoin world - to the upside. A number of articles in major media hit during the last few months, which may be sparking another round of public interest. That would explain what seems to be continuing fresh capital inflow.

The CES spot isn't about merely buying Bitcoins, but about their potential benefits over existing payment methods. That speaks to businesses' bottom line in an environment where margins are being squeezed ever tighter. It will raise eyebrows for newcomers, particularly with the ease of use compared to acquiring a smartphone credit card reader and dealing with all the other hoops required for other methods.

It's time for amateurs to lock in stop-losses and halt further trading, and pros to get some hedging in place. The greater the flow, the wider the swings. Prepare your emesis bags: things are about to get bloody.

[Litt]

Haha man oh man, this shit is like christmas!

I zhouthonged myself a sell at 7.00, hoping its gonna be like christmas !

You are doing it wrong.

[tvbcof]

...

I would say the train has left.  Good luck waiting around for that deal.  The next big predictable shocker that I believe will stun the value of the Bitcoin again is when the transaction demand overwhelms the P2P network and makes it prohibitive for all but the most valuable transactions, and people will then realize "ok, Bitcoin block chain is not useful for free everyday payments anymore, but now is the backing currency for a bunch of independent banks".  A negative paradigm shift people will have to get over, and maybe it will drop a BTC worth $500 back to one worth $50.

Or by that point we'll have a situation where organizations will be saying "Hey, use PeepCoin because we have a whole day's worth of Bitcoin production (1800 BTC) backing it's value among a bunch of other usability bells and whistles."

Maybe that is effectively what you are saying, but in that scenario I would see Bitcoin values mostly just continue to rise until the demand for crypto-currencies was saturated.  The main Bitcoin transactions would be relatively large transfers swapping backing value between competing crypto-currencies.

[casascius]

Maybe that is effectively what you are saying, but in that scenario I would see Bitcoin values mostly just continue to rise until the demand for crypto-currencies was saturated.  The main Bitcoin transactions would be relatively large transfers swapping backing value between competing crypto-currencies.

Quite possibly.  When that problem approaches, some time will be bought, I think, by big players running the only functioning instances of bitcoind (which will all have to be on highly connected servers), and most users of bitcoin will be using it through electrum-like clients and wallet services.  People will have to pay a meaningful fee to create a real block chain transaction, which would be today's equivalent of a bank wire.  Everyday people will conduct business through bitcoin "banks", today's equivalent of someone sending BTC from their MtGox account to another MtGox account.  (Such a transfer settles privately and never appears on the block chain.)

The presentation by Dan Kaminsky pretty much predicts this same thing, though Kaminsky frames it as us having to go back to the same "banks" Bitcoin was created to free us from.  I don't see it so harshly though - because these banks will be propped up by the free market and backed by free market currency, not propped up by the government and backed by a promise that the government will print more money and/or confiscate more wealth from the people to make up for anything that goes wrong.

[SgtSpike]

Maybe that is effectively what you are saying, but in that scenario I would see Bitcoin values mostly just continue to rise until the demand for crypto-currencies was saturated.  The main Bitcoin transactions would be relatively large transfers swapping backing value between competing crypto-currencies.

Quite possibly.  When that problem approaches, some time will be bought, I think, by big players running the only functioning instances of bitcoind (which will all have to be on highly connected servers), and most users of bitcoin will be using it through electrum-like clients and wallet services.  People will have to pay a meaningful fee to create a real block chain transaction, which would be today's equivalent of a bank wire.  Everyday people will conduct business through bitcoin "banks", today's equivalent of someone sending BTC from their MtGox account to another MtGox account.  (Such a transfer settles privately and never appears on the block chain.)

The presentation by Dan Kaminsky pretty much predicts this same thing, though Kaminsky frames it as us having to go back to the same "banks" Bitcoin was created to free us from.  I don't see it so harshly though - because these banks will be propped up by the free market and backed by free market currency, not propped up by the government and backed by a promise that the government will print more money and/or confiscate more wealth from the people to make up for anything that goes wrong.

...and then, a government who likes Bitcoin will decide to print notes of exchange for them!  They will keep 100% reserves of Bitcoins to match the notes printed, so each person can be certain that each 1 Bitcoin note will be worth exactly 1 Bitcoin, and can exchange them with the government at any time.  But then, the government changes the name to "Notes", and doesn't keep a 100% reserve anymore.  They continue printing the notes, despite the lack of Bitcoins backing them.  Finally, said government withdraws the ability for people to exchange their notes for Bitcoins.

I would hope that this wouldn't happen, but would almost laugh if it did.  Fortunately, those of us holding BTC from the start would be the ones in a good place when/if something like that ever went down.

[paraipan]

Maybe that is effectively what you are saying, but in that scenario I would see Bitcoin values mostly just continue to rise until the demand for crypto-currencies was saturated.  The main Bitcoin transactions would be relatively large transfers swapping backing value between competing crypto-currencies.

Quite possibly.  When that problem approaches, some time will be bought, I think, by big players running the only functioning instances of bitcoind (which will all have to be on highly connected servers), and most users of bitcoin will be using it through electrum-like clients and wallet services.  People will have to pay a meaningful fee to create a real block chain transaction, which would be today's equivalent of a bank wire.  Everyday people will conduct business through bitcoin "banks", today's equivalent of someone sending BTC from their MtGox account to another MtGox account.  (Such a transfer settles privately and never appears on the block chain.)

The presentation by Dan Kaminsky pretty much predicts this same thing, though Kaminsky frames it as us having to go back to the same "banks" Bitcoin was created to free us from.  I don't see it so harshly though - because these banks will be propped up by the free market and backed by free market currency, not propped up by the government and backed by a promise that the government will print more money and/or confiscate more wealth from the people to make up for anything that goes wrong.

...and then, a government who likes Bitcoin will decide to print notes of exchange for them!  They will keep 100% reserves of Bitcoins to match the notes printed, so each person can be certain that each 1 Bitcoin note will be worth exactly 1 Bitcoin, and can exchange them with the government at any time.  But then, the government changes the name to "Notes", and doesn't keep a 100% reserve anymore.  They continue printing the notes, despite the lack of Bitcoins backing them.  Finally, said government withdraws the ability for people to exchange their notes for Bitcoins.

I would hope that this wouldn't happen, but would almost laugh if it did.  Fortunately, those of us holding BTC from the start would be the ones in a good place when/if something like that ever went down.

amen. I'd put those it in my testament along with a nice qr where my wallet was stored

[tvbcof]

Maybe that is effectively what you are saying, but in that scenario I would see Bitcoin values mostly just continue to rise until the demand for crypto-currencies was saturated.  The main Bitcoin transactions would be relatively large transfers swapping backing value between competing crypto-currencies.

Quite possibly.  When that problem approaches, some time will be bought, I think, by big players running the only functioning instances of bitcoind (which will all have to be on highly connected servers)

I'm suspecting that I'll be operating a few in one cloud or another or some corner of a datacenter.  It would be most distasteful to me if/when it comes to this however.  I very much like the fact that almost anyone can run the full block-chain almost anywhere, and Bitcoin will be a much less compelling proposition to me when this is no longer the case.

, and most users of bitcoin will be using it through electrum-like clients and wallet services.  People will have to pay a meaningful fee to create a real block chain transaction, which would be today's equivalent of a bank wire.  Everyday people will conduct business through bitcoin "banks", today's equivalent of someone sending BTC from their MtGox account to another MtGox account.  (Such a transfer settles privately and never appears on the block chain.)

The presentation by Dan Kaminsky pretty much predicts this same thing, though Kaminsky frames it as us having to go back to the same "banks" Bitcoin was created to free us from.  I don't see it so harshly though - because these banks will be propped up by the free market and backed by free market currency, not propped up by the government and backed by a promise that the government will print more money and/or confiscate more wealth from the people to make up for anything that goes wrong.

I don't really see the necessity for banks (though I've got nothing against them as an option and recognize some of the nicities in terms of efficiency and speed.)

With a myriad of different kinds of crypto-currencies distributed the load of a fraction of a global economy, it seems to me that people could opt to use crypto-currencies independently of banks as an option.  I might choose to run (and possibly mine) PeepCoin and NewNameCoin because they cover my needs, but neglect SilkCoin because drugs are not an interest of mine these days (and if I get an urge to toke out again after 20 years, it's easy to trade some PeepCoin for some SilkCoin on an exchange.)  I might also be forced to mine Bitcoin because that is one of the requirements of mining (or just using) PeepCoin.

Or I may choose to avoid the hassles and just use a bank.

[kjj]

...and then, a government who likes Bitcoin will decide to print notes of exchange for them!  They will keep 100% reserves of Bitcoins to match the notes printed, so each person can be certain that each 1 Bitcoin note will be worth exactly 1 Bitcoin, and can exchange them with the government at any time.  But then, the government changes the name to "Notes", and doesn't keep a 100% reserve anymore.  They continue printing the notes, despite the lack of Bitcoins backing them.  Finally, said government withdraws the ability for people to exchange their notes for Bitcoins.

I would hope that this wouldn't happen, but would almost laugh if it did.  Fortunately, those of us holding BTC from the start would be the ones in a good place when/if something like that ever went down.

This cycle takes decades.  Essentially, they can't start the next round of bait-and-switch until most of the people that lived through the end of the last round are dead.

[SgtSpike]

Maybe that is effectively what you are saying, but in that scenario I would see Bitcoin values mostly just continue to rise until the demand for crypto-currencies was saturated.  The main Bitcoin transactions would be relatively large transfers swapping backing value between competing crypto-currencies.

Quite possibly.  When that problem approaches, some time will be bought, I think, by big players running the only functioning instances of bitcoind (which will all have to be on highly connected servers)

I'm suspecting that I'll be operating a few in one cloud or another or some corner of a datacenter.  It would be most distasteful to me if/when it comes to this however.  I very much like the fact that almost anyone can run the full block-chain almost anywhere, and Bitcoin will be a much less compelling proposition to me when this is no longer the case.

, and most users of bitcoin will be using it through electrum-like clients and wallet services.  People will have to pay a meaningful fee to create a real block chain transaction, which would be today's equivalent of a bank wire.  Everyday people will conduct business through bitcoin "banks", today's equivalent of someone sending BTC from their MtGox account to another MtGox account.  (Such a transfer settles privately and never appears on the block chain.)

The presentation by Dan Kaminsky pretty much predicts this same thing, though Kaminsky frames it as us having to go back to the same "banks" Bitcoin was created to free us from.  I don't see it so harshly though - because these banks will be propped up by the free market and backed by free market currency, not propped up by the government and backed by a promise that the government will print more money and/or confiscate more wealth from the people to make up for anything that goes wrong.

I don't really see the necessity for banks (though I've got nothing against them as an option and recognize some of the nicities in terms of efficiency and speed.)

With a myriad of different kinds of crypto-currencies distributed the load of a fraction of a global economy, it seems to me that people could opt to use crypto-currencies independently of banks as an option.  I might choose to run (and possibly mine) PeepCoin and NewNameCoin because they cover my needs, but neglect SilkCoin because drugs are not an interest of mine these days (and if I get an urge to toke out again after 20 years, it's easy to trade some PeepCoin for some SilkCoin on an exchange.)  I might also be forced to mine Bitcoin because that is one of the requirements of mining (or just using) PeepCoin.

Or I may choose to avoid the hassles and just use a bank.

I think using banks is going to become unavoidable, if for no reason other than the confirmations issue.  If you have a bank account with Bitcoins in it, and a trusted entity (a bank) promises to pay a merchant on your behalf for goods you want to buy, then there is no need for said merchant to wait for confirmations to process a transaction.  All they need to do is receive confirmation from the bank that the bank promises to pay.

A debit card for Bitcoins, if you will.

A merchant could accept 0-conf transactions as "good enough", which would work for a while, but it wouldn't be long before people came up with all sorts of schemes and softwares to help them rip off the retail stores (i.e. make a transaction appear on the retailer's system, then withdraw it or create another transaction using the same funds).  And judging by the number of people who have no ethical problem with pirating copyrighted content, I have no doubt that this sort of activity would be rampant if retailers accepted 0-conf transactions.

Anywho, that's my tangent on this thread for the day.

...and then, a government who likes Bitcoin will decide to print notes of exchange for them!  They will keep 100% reserves of Bitcoins to match the notes printed, so each person can be certain that each 1 Bitcoin note will be worth exactly 1 Bitcoin, and can exchange them with the government at any time.  But then, the government changes the name to "Notes", and doesn't keep a 100% reserve anymore.  They continue printing the notes, despite the lack of Bitcoins backing them.  Finally, said government withdraws the ability for people to exchange their notes for Bitcoins.

I would hope that this wouldn't happen, but would almost laugh if it did.  Fortunately, those of us holding BTC from the start would be the ones in a good place when/if something like that ever went down.

This cycle takes decades.  Essentially, they can't start the next round of bait-and-switch until most of the people that lived through the end of the last round are dead.

And until they swap some words around in the published and taught history textbooks. 

[BrBoy]

Top was $7.22... Volume is also high 211,995.46

[waspoza]

I think using banks is going to become unavoidable, if for no reason other than the confirmations issue.  If you have a bank account with Bitcoins in it, and a trusted entity (a bank) promises to pay a merchant on your behalf for goods you want to buy, then there is no need for said merchant to wait for confirmations to process a transaction.  All they need to do is receive confirmation from the bank that the bank promises to pay.

A debit card for Bitcoins, if you will.

A merchant could accept 0-conf transactions as "good enough", which would work for a while, but it wouldn't be long before people came up with all sorts of schemes and softwares to help them rip off the retail stores (i.e. make a transaction appear on the retailer's system, then withdraw it or create another transaction using the same funds).  And judging by the number of people who have no ethical problem with pirating copyrighted content, I have no doubt that this sort of activity would be rampant if retailers accepted 0-conf transactions.

Banks could use green adresses to 0 conf transactions. It should be safe i think.

[GeniuSxBoY]

wwhhhyyy iissssnn'''ttt cllllaaaarrrkkkk mmmooooooddddddyyyyyy wwwwooorrrrkkkiiiiinnnnnggg pppprrrrrooooppppeeerrrrllllyyyy

[Serge]

wwhhhyyy iissssnn'''ttt cllllaaaarrrkkkk mmmooooooddddddyyyyyy wwwwooorrrrkkkiiiiinnnnnggg pppprrrrrooooppppeeerrrrllllyyyy

is there anything that works at all atm

[SgtSpike]

Yeah, exactly waspoza.  A merchant would be much more likely to trust a transaction coming directly from a bank than from a consumer standing there with a handheld Bitcoin client in their hand.

The next step, of course, would be bank-to-bank transfers used as payments.  So basically, you and the merchant both have a bank account, and you issue a payment from your account to theirs.  You and the merchant never actually touch the Bitcoin ledger (and the bank(s) may not have to either), but it's just a balance transfer on paper.  It wouldn't be much different than the current credit card/debit card system.

We moved to using credit/debit cards for convenience.  Given how inconvenient it is to utilize a Bitcoin client in-person, I can imagine we would move to a similar system with Bitcoins.  It's kind of depressing because Bitcoins were made to move away from all of that stuff, but it's reality.  If Bitcoin usage became widespread, more convenient methods of making payments cropping up would be inevitable.

[Technomage]

The next step, of course, would be bank-to-bank transfers used as payments.  So basically, you and the merchant both have a bank account, and you issue a payment from your account to theirs.  You and the merchant never actually touch the Bitcoin ledger (and the bank(s) may not have to either), but it's just a balance transfer on paper.  It wouldn't be much different than the current credit card/debit card system.

We moved to using credit/debit cards for convenience.  Given how inconvenient it is to utilize a Bitcoin client in-person, I can imagine we would move to a similar system with Bitcoins.  It's kind of depressing because Bitcoins were made to move away from all of that stuff, but it's reality.  If Bitcoin usage became widespread, more convenient methods of making payments cropping up would be inevitable.

This is true. I also see it as very likely that certain bank services will continue to be in high demand even in a Bitcoin-economy. There is however, a big difference to how it is now. It's not forced, it's done by choice. Banks essentially have a monopoly on money in our current system which would be removed with Bitcoin. Simply because it is possible for anyone to store and send bitcoins in a very secure and fairly convenient way without relying on any 3rd party.

Using banks for convenience is a matter of choice. Even if most merchants started demanding a green address for instant transactions, I would still be able to store my savings independently and only channel the funds needed for my immediate needs through a third party such as a "bank". Banks of some sort are needed but the system would not be as reliant on them as we are now and banking would also be a significantly smaller business sector because many bank services would see much lower demand than they do now.

[miscreanity]

There is nothing preventing green address functionality from being implemented in clients, putting bank-style services in the hands of anyone using it. It's no different from allowing popups or saving known passwords for trusted sites using your browser.

A client used in a business setting can easily build a green/trusted list based off repeat transactions. For a franchise, this may include verification against all of the other locations' lists.

There remains room here for traditional 3rd-party banking services, but it is still a matter of choice rather than force as SgtSpike pointed out.