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[Reelya]

"invest" in bitcoins is the wrong idea. e.g. if everyone decided suddenly steaming turds were valuable, you could "invest" in them. Until someone works out you're just polishing turds then the bubble bursts. You just have to be clever enough not to be the one holding the turd when people wise up (just like fraudulent stock price bubbles).

That could be a problem with bitcoins, they may be more like a stock price bubble than a state currency, but without the assets and business backing up the value. Think about bitcoins as if they were shares - in nothing at all.

At least a government-issued currency makes certain commitments, e.g. like regulation the money supply based on how much is circulating. This means hoarding behavior is mitigated to even out price changes, etc.

The black market sellers only want to hold onto the bitcoins for the duration of the transaction, then cash them out into something stable. For that reason, they don't really care if bitcoins are worth more, or less in the future (they'll just buy enough to process the single transaction then walk with the money).

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

Investing wasnt the right word, I meant using them often enough to keep them "afloat" as a currency. As someone else said earlier, who's backing a currency doesnt matter as long as they are backing it (drug/crime/taxes and so on)

[Reelya]

Backing it may be the wrong idea, pretty sure that the entire world drug trade could be facilitated with a single bitcoin, due to it's ability to be split up. All that's needed is some guarantee they can "cash out" for the same price, minus some agreed processing percentage.

[Helgoland]

Russian women are hotter and a lot thinner than American girls

I second the "hot" part.
Soviet industry wasn't all it's cracked up to be, though - otherwise they would probably have survived on the free market.

[Jimmy]

Russian women are hotter and a lot thinner than American girls

I second the "hot" part.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Darvi]

I'm not qualified to judge hotness, but I can confirm the thinness. *extrapolating from single data point*

[Reelya]

google images for "american girl" vs "russian girl". The top American hit looked totally plastic:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

vs this for "russian girl":

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Maybe it's just me, but she looks much more natural :/

btw the fattest russian woman can't compare to American specimens:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And those are probably half the age of that Russian woman.

[BinaryBeast1010011010]

Lets not derail on hotness and thinness. I believe that criminal organizatons do mingle with states secret services. This kind of alliance do allow more flexibility to head of states. You need someone killed but dont want any trace, just hire a criminal that will do the job. Since bitcoins are easy to anonymize, one can assume that (because of their indirect use by states) that they hold enough value to be bought and therefore used as an alternate currency.

[Cthulhu]

The posts extrapolating country-wide hotness trends based on google image search and stereotypes are probably some of the worst posts anyone has ever posted on anything.  Please stop.

Like I said, somewhere to the tune of 90% of all currently mined bitcoins have never changed hands.  I think it's all but a given that the ground floor guys are going to treat this like a pyramid scheme and detonate the market for profit at some point in the future.

Given the noted liquidity issues bitcoins have wouldn't that likely just result in

Spoiler: this? (click to show/hide)

 Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!  Move it, chowderhead!

That's a good point.  The other possibility is that they actually think the currency is going to go places, and want to cash in on the extreme deflation built into the system.  Mine 500 bitcoins in 2011, then in Libertarian Utopia 2025 when a house costs five PicoBTC, you're disgustingly rich.  That, of course, would require bitcoins to actually be a thing in the future.

[Helgoland]

Or they wanted enough to buy their daily dose of weed from the deflation profit.

[Reelya]

The posts extrapolating country-wide hotness trends based on google image search and stereotypes are probably some of the worst posts anyone has ever posted on anything.  Please stop.

...you didn't actually look at my images did you? (or you would've got the joke). I didn't say the american girl wasn't hot, i said she looks "plastic".

That's a good point.  The other possibility is that they actually think the currency is going to go places, and want to cash in on the extreme deflation built into the system.  Mine 500 bitcoins in 2011, then in Libertarian Utopia 2025 when a house costs five PicoBTC, you're disgustingly rich.  That, of course, would require bitcoins to actually be a thing in the future.

Personally, I see value heading south, not north.

[Cthulhu]

I did look.  My point still stands.

And that's because you're not an internet libertarian.

you see, free markets

ron paul fractional reserve banking, you see

you see

If it does somehow succeed though, the system is naturally deflationary and you will end up with buying things for fractional bitcoins four or five decimal places back.  The maximum number of bitcoins possible is 21 million, if you lose your wallet any bitcoins inside are gone forever and can never re-enter the system, and as more bitcoins are mined the difficulty of mining more increases.

[Reelya]

I see. Thank you for enlightening me.

[Levi]

I still like the idea of bitcoins.  Having a currency that isn't controlled by the banks just seems cool to me.  Its a shame that it seems mostly used for scams and such.

[Reelya]

They seem unstable. The fact that some guy said "gimme $1 million in bitcoins" caused a surge in prices, suggests they're inherently unstable.

The chart above shows that as the news hit, Bitcoins spiked dramatically. This is likely because the idea of $1 million in new Bitcoins entering the system is attractive to users and potential investors.

Not sure about the above analysis. More likely people wanted to cash-in on the reward by raising prices. Gotta buy the bitcoins from existing holders. More likely people holding onto bitcoins saw it as a way to quickly cash-out for a higher price.