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[Loud Whispers]

No we don't, simply less projecting and more Morgan Freeman narrating.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Would anyone like some tulips?

[Leafsnail]

Bitcoins are a deflationary currency, so you're likely to see them rise against an inflationary currency naturally.  This helps create the illusion that they're worthwhile in some way

[Putnam]

Deflationary currency is a damn stupid idea.

It encourages holding onto money instead of, you know, actually helping the economy.

[alway]

Most of the things I've read suggest the creator actually made them as a kindof proof of concept of digital currency and the cryptography required to make it work.  It later got hijacked by wannabe Galts seeking to be the new kings of industry.

Not true. They were designed to be deflationary from the start. That is to say, it's no more been 'hijacked' than Madoff's investment firm was 'hijacked' by people wanting to get rich off his awesome investment plans. Gotta say though, the guy who made it was damn clever. They created a ponzi scheme which not only netted them large sums of money, but which was entirely risk-free to themselves.

Bitcoin is not, can not, and never will be anything close to a useful currency, any more than you would consider the pre-WW2 hyperinflating German Mark to be a useful currency. It's a giant investment pyramid, spurred on by its deflationary nature, and as such is inherently impossible to stabilize. A currency which is not stable is not useful. It is, at that point, a mere commodity, just like oil futures, gold, or silver. And as a commodity, as had been stated previously, is simply a pyramid built on top of people's trust in its value as a currency. A value which is increasingly apparent to be nonexistent. Even its uses for money-laundering are commodity uses, rather than currency uses; adding no value to it as a currency. You could do the same thing with hog carcasses or cases of wood pulp.


As evidence, compare the exchange rate prices for bitcoin and typical currencies. Over the past year of data, the USD:EUR exchange rate has fluctuated within a range of .74 to .82, or approximately 10% of its value. And that in the midst of a massive economic crisis in Europe including all the Eurozone issues we've heard so much about and their current double-dip recession. Meanwhile, in the past 7 days of data, the USD:bitcoin exchange rate has fluctuated within a range of 120.5 to 133.5, or roughly the same fluctuation; and if the trend of the past 3 days continue, it's only going to be worse next week.

And therein lies the biggest issue: when you talk about regulated currencies, you have as much fluctuation in a year as bitcoin does in a week; and that's without even getting into the 50% crash a couple months ago. You can't call it a currency when its gains and losses make a tech stock look calm in comparison.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/bitcoins-roller-coaster-ride-gets-wilder-as-wall-street-china-climb-on/

Now that 7 months have passed I'd like to point out that some serious people think bitcoins are worth investing in, and that they may have a future not just as a niche currency for paying hookers and drug dealers.

I guess we are more likely to see them as a currency than to see blowjobs used widely as an exchange mean, to quote AutomataKittay.I also guess that this "joke" is getting taken more and more seriously. Of course I'm just linking another article so it wont make it any more real by itself but I guess china and wall street investors might

[Another]

A number of serious investors earned fortunes by buying shares of Bernie Madoff firm. What is the difference with bitcoins again?

[Leafsnail]

The fundamental problem is that Bitcoins are a bad way of transferring money, and they only get worse the more people join.  A speculative bubble doesn't change that.

Incidentall, I haven't seen too many stories of people getting rich off BTC.  Probably becaise almost every wallet has lost people's bitcoins due to "hacks".

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

I'm interested, how would you hack a paper wallet? people not following best practices and losing money because of that is nothing new.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I guess we are more likely to see them as a currency than to see blowjobs used widely as an exchange mean, to quote AutomataKittay.I also guess that this "joke" is getting taken more and more seriously. Of course I'm just linking another article so it wont make it any more real by itself but I guess china and wall street investors might

Lol. Spoken like a true outsider to real market knowledge. I can't just let this sit here, I'm sorry people. There's a beautiful gem of knowledge in the trading world: Where there's euphoria there's downside. Especially when said euphoria is coming from people who don't know what they are talking about. [people excited about BTC are not buyers/traders/miners, they are on the outside looking in]

You ignored the fact that China is restricting BTC usage to create their own faux-version, which will smash any xcoin in value and usefulness [hint, you can't use BTC/Litecoin to buy anything] due to the ability to actually purchase a not-drug with them.

I'd suggest going out and buying some silver and coming back 20 years to tell me about how much better of an idea that was. Much, much better than burning your money on wannabe inflation-hedge-like-gold-but-better-because-science ponzie schemes. Tesla Motors and Facebook/Twitter are safer investments right now, lol.

If you're that one guy who had triple digit BTC, then you take your illgotten money and run.

Otherwise, I have to assume from your post that you find the current BTC market value to be fair or less than what it should be. So in this case; tell me exactly how BTC is worth 1200$ a [fake] unit.




Would you like to buy some of my tulips?


But seriously. You have all the glassy eyed optimism of this being a 'real' currency one day? Based on which precedents? Did you know there's still actually valuable fiat currency substitutes which actually will protect you from inflation, known as precious metals? What the hell about fake online tokens make them worth more than bullion? May as well hedge all your money with NcSoft in-game tokens [NCoin] along with BTC for all the real world value they have.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

Your point being? I never said bitcoins were some kind of hedge fund.  Furthermore as they get more and more popular you will be able to use them for more and more legitimate purchases. So beside telling me that I either know squat about economy and should invest in Twitter or I am some kind of crook I fail to see in what way you are talking about the changes in the situation of the crypto currency. At least being publicly recognised by governments makes it more than a "geek toy" doesn't it?

[Mictlantecuhtli]

If you are willing to talk it up you had better be able to defend the 1000$ price tag per unit.

Once again, what makes BTC so much better than gold or silver-indexed currencies? Do you even understand that comparison? I can break this down further since economics is a tangled web and most don't like to get to the weeds.

Because to get to utopia BTC-card-for-all stage you would require a massive fundamental shift in the ways that central banks around the world are handling their business currently [preparing for gold/silver shifts, power follows gold reserves historically].

China is buying gold. India is buying silver and gold, stockpiling to create/shift to their own currencies with actual value backing. Why are they not buying all the SUPER VALUABLE xcoins on the market?

Because they're more interested in the actual currency wars and not pipe dreams.

[Leafsnail]

To store your bitcoins yourself you need to download a huge blockchain and ruin your computer's speed forever.  Most people therefore use storage services for convenience.  However, these services have repeatedly mysteriously lost bitcoins (realistically most cases probably involved the wallet operators stealing the coins).

though the main problem is still transaction time.  It takes over 5 minutes to make a bitcoin trade, and that time would become much larger if Bitcoin became a significant currency.  That's just way too long for any reasonable purpose.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm sorry, I can't hear you all over the internet libertarian separatism.

[Bdthemag]

Oh boy, who would of thought the price of bitcoins would crash again?