Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[oakpacific]

It's a kinda surreal feeling to be able to rally for something that will benefit the whole human race greatly, and at the same time being rewarded greatly for it personally.

It must have been a long time since the two were compatible.

[rocks]

I am waiting for a correction from 2 weeks with monies on the exchange but this b*tch just goes up and upper.
Could someone please dump a load and crash the price for a minute?

Remember - no weekly negatives between $13 and $266.

No weekly negatives after $130

 

Profit.

That's why fully trading something you believe in or view as a store of wealth does not make sense. Many traders sold the majority of their holdings at the "bubble" prices around $40 - $70 on the last ramp, but then completely lost out on the real move.

It's fine to buy and sell a small percentage of your BTC holdings if you want, but make sure to hold a core position if you think the long-term trend is up.

[hlynur]

why are all these ppl bashing gold?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QFErOdTag

Ringos?  hadn't heard of that one, lol!

very good explanatory vid.
thanks for posting and i'll put it on the documentary thread. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268955.0)

[thezerg]

why are all these ppl bashing gold?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QFErOdTag

Ringos?  hadn't heard of that one, lol!

very good explanatory vid.
thanks for posting and i'll put it on the documentary thread. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268955.0)

Divisibility is not really a tie -- I doubt I could cut a Maple Leaf in half with a chisel and sell the halves as easily as the whole.  Also gold has too much value to carry small payments easily -- the dusting of gold would be too easily lost.  And in practice the minimum value transfer amount is some function of the cost to validate that the gold is not counterfeit.

I tell people this:
Human technological progress is the story of tools that progress from the use of natural substances with desirable (and undesirable) properties to engineered solutions highly optimized to the problem. The stone axe becomes the bronze then steel axe and finally the chainsaw.

Gold/silver is the natural substance that best meets the properties of ideal money. Fiat currencies are engineered as perfect money but are unsound because they have no guaranteed scarcity. Bitcoin is the first engineered sound money, with the best properties of scarcity, divisibility, portability, transferability, and verifiability of any known currency. 

[cypherdoc]

why are all these ppl bashing gold?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QFErOdTag

Ringos?  hadn't heard of that one, lol!

very good explanatory vid.
thanks for posting and i'll put it on the documentary thread. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=268955.0)

Divisibility is not really a tie -- I doubt I could cut a Maple Leaf in half with a chisel and sell the halves as easily as the whole.  Also gold has too much value to carry small payments easily -- the dusting of gold would be too easily lost.  And in practice the minimum value transfer amount is some function of the cost to validate that the gold is not counterfeit.

I tell people this:
Human technological progress is the story of tools that progress from the use of natural substances with desirable (and undesirable) properties to engineered solutions highly optimized to the problem. The stone axe becomes the bronze then steel axe and finally the chainsaw.

Gold/silver is the natural substance that best meets the properties of ideal money. Fiat currencies are engineered as perfect money but are unsound because they have no guaranteed scarcity. Bitcoin is the first engineered sound money, with the best properties of scarcity, divisibility, portability, transferability, and verifiability of any known currency. 

Well then, how about an update?

[User705]

Some things where gold is possibly better are distructability.  If your house burns down gold is recoverable.  Also the issue of scarcity isn't as iron clad as you believe it to be.  Bitcoin generation is controlled by miners and it's too early to tell if at some point they won't decide to not half the rewards or do something similar that effects bitcoin scarcity.

[rocks]

Bitcoin generation is controlled by miners and it's too early to tell if at some point they won't decide to not half the rewards or do something similar that effects bitcoin scarcity.

It's not just the miners but all the client nodes that would have to agree to such a change. Miners can give themselves whatever block reward they want, but if the block does not conform to the agreed rules such blocks will be rejected by the network. Even if 99% of the miners decided to try this the network would reject all such attempts the 1% of honest miners would become the true chain.

That is what is so strong about a decentralized protocol. Everyone has to agree to a change, even you. That is a power that we do not have with fiat today...

[User705]

Bitcoin generation is controlled by miners and it's too early to tell if at some point they won't decide to not half the rewards or do something similar that effects bitcoin scarcity.

It's not just the miners but all the client nodes that would have to agree to such a change. Miners can give themselves whatever block reward they want, but if the block does not conform to the agreed rules such blocks will be rejected by the network. Even if 99% of the miners decided to try this the network would reject all such attempts the 1% of honest miners would become the true chain.

That is what is so strong about a decentralized protocol. Everyone has to agree to a change, even you. That is a power that we do not have with fiat today...

I'll have to read up on that.  I understood that to be a bit different.  What's stoping some entity from controlling a majority of nodes then?  Those seem to be much cheaper then miners aren't they?  Also such a fork of bitcoin would certainly effect it's value.  Which is the discussion here that bitcoin is better then gold because it is scarce.  The secondary issue of alt coins should also be mentioned in the scarcity discussion.  Some will say that all Alts aren't bitcoin and are inferior which while possibly true does effect the scarcity claim since I'm sure plenty of bitcoin holders diversify and hold some alts as well which in effect means there are more crypto units per gold unit and more continue to get created.

[tvbcof]

I am now changing my mind about the odds of Bitcoin 'taking off'.  I would not say that it is something I consider likely, but I now consider it a distinct possibility with a high enough probability to put some planning into.

As I've always said, 'taking off' means to me valuations much much higher than now.  Up in the $10k range if not higher.

Ironically this has induced me to seriously consider liquidating a notable chunk of my holdings vs. doing so at a cost of living trickle.  The rational is that as long as I retain a fair number I'll be stupidly rich should Bitcoin 'go' so it won't matter a lot.  And if Bitcoin craters I'll have had a pretty good ride in the end.

I talk to my CPA soon to figure out the financial ramifications of various courses of action.  Also, the ever present problem of what I would rather be sitting on than BTC is an issue.

[justusranvier]

Up in the $10k range if not higher.

I will be incredibly surprised if we don't see $10k before the end of 2015, and not very surprised if we see it sometime in 2014.

[molecular]

Bitcoin is the first engineered sound money

This is a great definition of Bitcoin. Will use.

[Wekkel]

Up in the $10k range if not higher.

I will be incredibly surprised if we don't see $10k before the end of 2015, and not very surprised if we see it sometime in 2014.

What's the logic behind your reasoning?

[Melbustus]

Up in the $10k range if not higher.

I will be incredibly surprised if we don't see $10k before the end of 2015, and not very surprised if we see it sometime in 2014.

Seriously? I mean....we're all mostly uber-bulls in this thread, but that would be....fast.

At $10k/btc, the full issuance "market-cap" would be $210B. That large a monetary base implies *significant* global influence, and serious attention of all sorts (not least of which would be regulatory/political).

Don't get me wrong....assuming no major flaws in bitcoin or incredible coordinated force from governments, $10k/btc in 5-10yrs is possible, though my "success" target is still under $5k for that timeframe. (sidenote: funny when a "conservative" target is over 1000% gain from current value).  

[justusranvier]

What's the logic behind your reasoning?

The consistent long-term exponential growth in the exchange rate that's been fairly steady at ~6%/week since 2010.

It's exactly what we'd expect from the beginning stages of the adoption curve of a new technology.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#igDailyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zl

[wachtwoord]

Emphasis mine:

At $10k/btc, the full issuance "market-cap" would be $210B. That large a monetary base implies *significant* global influence, and serious attention of all sorts (not least of which would be regulatory/political).

Precisely

[Melbustus]

The consistent long-term exponential growth in the exchange rate that's been fairly steady at ~6%/week since 2010.

It's exactly what we'd expect from the beginning stages of the adoption curve of a new technology.

Yeah, but there's a big difference expanding exponentially within the realm of still-doesn't-matter-much-globally and cracking through to major geo-political influence.

Another 10x from where we are today is *still* a toy by global standards; so I agree that that may very well happen quickly (1-3yrs). But I think the next order of magnitude after that will take much longer than prior 10x jumps because it has to crack a totally new (ie, the final) level of relevancy/influence/power/etc.


Edit: But in fairness to your argument, I didn't think we'd be here at $200+ as quickly as we are, either (despite being firmly in the long-term-bull all-or-nothing camp since I first found out about bitcoin).

[notme]

Bitcoin generation is controlled by miners and it's too early to tell if at some point they won't decide to not half the rewards or do something similar that effects bitcoin scarcity.

It's not just the miners but all the client nodes that would have to agree to such a change. Miners can give themselves whatever block reward they want, but if the block does not conform to the agreed rules such blocks will be rejected by the network. Even if 99% of the miners decided to try this the network would reject all such attempts the 1% of honest miners would become the true chain.

That is what is so strong about a decentralized protocol. Everyone has to agree to a change, even you. That is a power that we do not have with fiat today...

I'll have to read up on that.  I understood that to be a bit different.  What's stoping some entity from controlling a majority of nodes then?  Those seem to be much cheaper then miners aren't they?  Also such a fork of bitcoin would certainly effect it's value.  Which is the discussion here that bitcoin is better then gold because it is scarce.  The secondary issue of alt coins should also be mentioned in the scarcity discussion.  Some will say that all Alts aren't bitcoin and are inferior which while possibly true does effect the scarcity claim since I'm sure plenty of bitcoin holders diversify and hold some alts as well which in effect means there are more crypto units per gold unit and more continue to get created.

Having the majority of nodes does nothing.

The point is, you can't change the rules without updating all the nodes to accept the rule change.  If you do change the rules, you will fork from the chain everybody calls bitcoin.  Unless you get all of the exchanges and merchant processors to follow your new rules, you won't change bitcoin.  You will only have a fork with different rules that other people may or may not give some value.

[thoughtfan]

The consistent long-term exponential growth in the exchange rate that's been fairly steady at ~6%/week since 2010.

It's exactly what we'd expect from the beginning stages of the adoption curve of a new technology.

I think it also worth noting though that technology adoption does not have a direct correlation to price of units of said technology.  Depending on confidence price can race ahead and on fear of missing the train can jump off the scale for a time with the inevitable corresponding drawback.  

We've got to scale back rather a long way and even then iron out some of the remaining kinks to get to a 'steady ~6%/week'.  And though we can get rather good at guestimating at which point we are in terms of being 'on track', racing ahead or whatever I would be reluctant to claim where we are today is above, below or approximately 'on target' in relation to the underlying adoption curve.

[wachtwoord]

The consistent long-term exponential growth in the exchange rate that's been fairly steady at ~6%/week since 2010.

It's exactly what we'd expect from the beginning stages of the adoption curve of a new technology.

I think it also worth noting though that technology adoption does not have a direct correlation to price of units of said technology.  Depending on confidence price can race ahead and on fear of missing the train can jump off the scale for a time with the inevitable corresponding drawback.  

We've got to scale back rather a long way and even then iron out some of the remaining kinks to get to a 'steady ~6%/week'.  And though we can get rather good at guestimating at which point we are in terms of being 'on track', racing ahead or whatever I would be reluctant to claim where we are today is above, below or approximately 'on target' in relation to the underlying adoption curve.

The big thing is that that doesn't matter. 6% a week is such an immense pace that even if we are 100% overpriced today it only takes 72/6=12 weeks to catch up and from there on out it's 6% a week.

6% a week is >1900% APR

[vokain]

What's the logic behind your reasoning?

The consistent long-term exponential growth in the exchange rate that's been fairly steady at ~6%/week since 2010.

It's exactly what we'd expect from the beginning stages of the adoption curve of a new technology.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#igDailyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zl

[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8iEr1yB8kAg/UR_uP_GzFTI/AAAAAAAAAws/J-fl_ypqsTc/s1600/Historical+adoption+curves.gif[\img]

Something I have always wondered about is the use of data from 2009, 2010, and even early 2011. Does the nature of the jump from 0.00001% to 0.0001% market share actually contain any meaningful information? To my uneducated self, it seems like this is most likely to be noise

the data we have thus far has shown evidence of exponential growth patterns