wachtwoord Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Yadayada is bringing up some good points. The fact of the matter is, BTC doesn't do anything better than what's already out there. Like what? The USD? :D Who wants to use a credit card with no chargeback options? Through cashback and sign-on bonuses, I actually make money using a card, and if I get a shoddy merchant, it may save me thousands. Merchants need to have far higher merchants to account for losses due to chargebacks. Credit card companies take huge fees. Do you really believe the small cash back you get is higher than what you would save if the middle man was taken out? I don't think you understand the business model of credit card companies. Fees are nothing at banks and other institutions. I can convert pretty much any fiat for $2 at IB. Yeah, if I am doing this with more than a few million, the cost rises a little ($2k on $1M), but that seems like a rich person problem. Me too. I only know one other person with a brokerage account and when exchanging money to go on holiday it's not like I can withdraw foreign currency from IB. Add to that the fact that a fiat withdrawal in Euro's will cost me ~20 Euros. Banking fees are huge and are much lower when using Bitcoin, not to mention much faster. An most importantly, no-one can block you. I don't like a third party deciding what I do with my money. Banks have blocked transfers of mine in the past. First they accused me of having a virus but when I kept complaining I got someone higher up and she admitted the bank just didn't want me to transfer money where I wanted to transfer money. The fact that the money was mine didn't seem like a valid argument to them. This was ING Bank btw. If BTC is going to $1M a coin like some people say, why do I need more than 1? That's almost a 100,000% return from now, or a thousand-bagger. I don't see that happening. That being said, I'm a cheapskate in the boonies. $1M and I'd be set. So buy 1 BTC if you think that's enough. $1M might be a long way out though :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Things aren't going well for those involved with Silk Road 2 :( Alleged Top Moderators Of Silk Road 2 Forums Arrested In Ireland, U.S. In International Sweep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 I responded to the volatility and explained why it's not a problem. Volatility for an investment isn't important, we just require a stronger rate of return. Further extreme volatility is to be expected in something that is as grossly undervalued as Bitcoin and will balance out as the market cap grows. I'm sure the same thing happened to gold when it was first discovered. With our current fast paced society the fluctuations just go a hell of a lot faster :) You claimed overvaluation because it went up fast and then down by ~50% in a few days and I claimed that's not what defines overvaluation. I can't provide a truly accurate valuation besides WAY WAY higher than today. People have done this in the past and continue to do so. This: http://bitcoin-valuation.org/fair-value-bitcoin-28823/ is an example and this ignores most of the uses of Bitcoin and also forgets to inflate the money supply to account for 20 years of inflation. The thing is, if you believe it's overvalued today you must be pretty sure the value is very close to zero as the market cap today is just way too low as a currency. Even if Bitcoin would only replace gold (and Bitcoin is better than gold) the value would be >$300k per Bitcoin given the current market cap of gold. This can be your opinion (that the whole idea behind crypto and probably gold even does not appeal to you at all) but then say so and at least offer the common Keynsian arguments instead of the non-arguments your offering now. You see, I don't think our discussion is very productive in the way we're doing it now :) You are completly missing the point here. Volatility is a problem because it directly interferes with practical use. You think google would have succeeded if they randomly decided to take down their server every other day? We would all be using bing now. You cant compare the value of a currency with a freaking stock price lol. They are 2 different things. People ddidt have to use google stock to pay for stuff for google to be succesfull. And i claim overvalued because of this: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/n-transactions Before anyone besides some hackers and online drugbuyers had ever heard of bitcoin, transactions were pretty much the same as they are now. And no you cant just exclude popular adresses. With 2 periods of big exposure this year, almost no one is using it to pay for stuff. Another thing to prove my point is that bitpay only had 100 million$ in transactions. This may look like alot but consider this chart: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= 100 million$ in volume is literally 4 easy days in july. Or maybe 5 days in january. So if it was like 2 or 3 billion, that would actually show adoption. But everyone i just buying to hoard, and no one buys to pay for stuff. And with 15k merchants accepting it and all the coverage, there is really no excuse for that. My prediction is that this wont become any better next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I responded to the volatility and explained why it's not a problem. Volatility for an investment isn't important, we just require a stronger rate of return. Further extreme volatility is to be expected in something that is as grossly undervalued as Bitcoin and will balance out as the market cap grows. I'm sure the same thing happened to gold when it was first discovered. With our current fast paced society the fluctuations just go a hell of a lot faster :) You claimed overvaluation because it went up fast and then down by ~50% in a few days and I claimed that's not what defines overvaluation. I can't provide a truly accurate valuation besides WAY WAY higher than today. People have done this in the past and continue to do so. This: http://bitcoin-valuation.org/fair-value-bitcoin-28823/ is an example and this ignores most of the uses of Bitcoin and also forgets to inflate the money supply to account for 20 years of inflation. The thing is, if you believe it's overvalued today you must be pretty sure the value is very close to zero as the market cap today is just way too low as a currency. Even if Bitcoin would only replace gold (and Bitcoin is better than gold) the value would be >$300k per Bitcoin given the current market cap of gold. This can be your opinion (that the whole idea behind crypto and probably gold even does not appeal to you at all) but then say so and at least offer the common Keynsian arguments instead of the non-arguments your offering now. You see, I don't think our discussion is very productive in the way we're doing it now :) You are completly missing the point here. Volatility is a problem because it directly interferes with practical use. You think google would have succeeded if they randomly decided to take down their server every other day? We would all be using bing now. You cant compare the value of a currency with a freaking stock price lol. They are 2 different things. People ddidt have to use google stock to pay for stuff for google to be succesfull. And i claim overvalued because of this: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/n-transactions Before anyone besides some hackers and online drugbuyers had ever heard of bitcoin, transactions were pretty much the same as they are now. And no you cant just exclude popular adresses. With 2 periods of big exposure this year, almost no one is using it to pay for stuff. Another thing to prove my point is that bitpay only had 100 million$ in transactions. This may look like alot but consider this chart: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= 100 million$ in volume is literally 4 easy days in july. Or maybe 5 days in january. So if it was like 2 or 3 billion, that would actually show adoption. But everyone i just buying to hoard, and no one buys to pay for stuff. And with 15k merchants accepting it and all the coverage, there is really no excuse for that. My prediction is that this wont become any better next year. Gold has been very successful throughout history but must have been very volatile at the start. So volatility is moot. Transaction volume is a very weak proxy to determine the amount of sales (at the very least right now possibly ever). This includes every transaction, so also me shuffling my coins in my own wallets as part of general bookkeeping, but also moving them to exchanges to sell or trade them (which causes the huge peaks in the graph on the 3 times in history Bitcoin price has risen super-exponentially) and gambling games. The gambling games create a single transaction for every bet made (not just for depositing and withdrawing). It's unfair to use this to determine general purchasing volume as such a purchase only produces 1 transaction in the blockchain. (oh and btw: I'd use this smoothed graphs myself so: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=7&show_header=true&scale=1&address= and https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7×pan=all&scale=1&address= ) The sales volume of Bitpay is a much better proxy and still low indeed. It did grow substantially. In the end, Bitcoin is greatly undervalued even if no-one will ever use it as a currency (which isn't true today) because merely replacing gold requires a valuation of $300,000 per Bitcoin. And as you may recall: Bitcoin is better than gold http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html ) Anyway, I really doubt we'll come to agreement (see how I just repeated and summarized my argument that volatility is fine?). Let's just let time decide who's right, but we both made the points we wanted to make, now others can do their own due diligence if this sparked their interest :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephistopheles Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The sales volume of Bitpay is a much better proxy and still low indeed. It did grow substantially. In the end, Bitcoin is greatly undervalued even if no-one will ever use it as a currency (which isn't true today) because merely replacing gold requires a valuation of $300,000 per Bitcoin. And as you may recall: Bitcoin is better than gold http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html ) Why is "Bitcoin replacing gold" a forgone conclusion? Yes I get that there is ease of transfer, but you are saying that even if it's not used as currency, it will replace gold. But as someone else pointed out in this thread, gold has been ingrained in our civilization for thousands of years, and holds the confidence as a store of value for the vast majority of people around the world. So I think it's flawed to say as if Bitcoin should be $300,000, just because it's better than gold. And I wouldn't even say it's better than gold. Gold has other uses besides store of value and currency, bitcoin doesn't. If the whole system breaks down, or if the Government puts restrictions on the use of bitcoins, the ease of transfer doesn't work anymore; and then it doesn't have that advantage over gold. Gold you can store in your house, sew in your garments. As someone else pointed out, the government is not going to be able to check every single household. Everyone knows gold. Everyone knows it's valuable. It's shiny and pretty. It has the "share of mind" that Buffett talks about. Bitcoin doesn't have any of these qualities. EDIT: Just to put things in perspective about the power and mind share of gold: Stocks are a much better store of value than gold is. This is proven. Stocks pay you dividends while gold just sits there. YET, gold has increased in value over the years. Now we have bitcoins which pay no dividends, and don't represent any value besides what other people decide to value them as, and are not legally backed by any government. It will for sure not replace gold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephistopheles Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The sales volume of Bitpay is a much better proxy and still low indeed. It did grow substantially. In the end, Bitcoin is greatly undervalued even if no-one will ever use it as a currency (which isn't true today) because merely replacing gold requires a valuation of $300,000 per Bitcoin. And as you may recall: Bitcoin is better than gold http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html ) Why is "Bitcoin replacing gold" a forgone conclusion? Yes I get that there is ease of transfer, but you are saying that even if it's not used as currency, it will replace gold. But as someone else pointed out in this thread, gold has been ingrained in our civilization for thousands of years, and holds the confidence as a store of value for the vast majority of people around the world. So I think it's flawed to say as if Bitcoin should be $300,000, just because it's better than gold. And I wouldn't even say it's better than gold. Gold has other uses besides store of value and currency, bitcoin doesn't. If the whole system breaks down, or if the Government puts restrictions on the use of bitcoins, the ease of transfer doesn't work anymore; and then it doesn't have that advantage over gold. Gold you can store in your house, sew in your garments. As someone else pointed out, the government is not going to be able to check every single household. Everyone knows gold. Everyone knows it's valuable. It's shiny and pretty. It has the "share of mind" that Buffett talks about. Bitcoin doesn't have any of these qualities. Please read the source I linked to, than you'll agree Bitcoin is better than gold. It's simply because it implements the properties (scarce, fungible, uniform, transportable, have a high value-to-weight ratio, are easily identifiable, are highly durable, and their supplies are relatively steady and predictable) better than PMs. To respond to your last point: Bitcoin is also easier to store "in your house" with less chances of confiscation. If someone looks through your house they'll find you gold storage much easier to however you stored your private keys. Add to that that private keys can be encrypted. Crypto is taking over, simply because it's better :) What if the government says bitcoin transactions are illegal? Maybe they can't confiscate it, but they can shut down its use. Or what if shit hits the fan and the internet doesn't work tomorrow, and all we have is here and now? Also I added an edit to my previous post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The sales volume of Bitpay is a much better proxy and still low indeed. It did grow substantially. In the end, Bitcoin is greatly undervalued even if no-one will ever use it as a currency (which isn't true today) because merely replacing gold requires a valuation of $300,000 per Bitcoin. And as you may recall: Bitcoin is better than gold http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html ) Why is "Bitcoin replacing gold" a forgone conclusion? Yes I get that there is ease of transfer, but you are saying that even if it's not used as currency, it will replace gold. But as someone else pointed out in this thread, gold has been ingrained in our civilization for thousands of years, and holds the confidence as a store of value for the vast majority of people around the world. So I think it's flawed to say as if Bitcoin should be $300,000, just because it's better than gold. And I wouldn't even say it's better than gold. Gold has other uses besides store of value and currency, bitcoin doesn't. If the whole system breaks down, or if the Government puts restrictions on the use of bitcoins, the ease of transfer doesn't work anymore; and then it doesn't have that advantage over gold. Gold you can store in your house, sew in your garments. As someone else pointed out, the government is not going to be able to check every single household. Everyone knows gold. Everyone knows it's valuable. It's shiny and pretty. It has the "share of mind" that Buffett talks about. Bitcoin doesn't have any of these qualities. Please read the source I linked to, than you'll agree Bitcoin is better than gold. It's simply because it implements the properties (scarce, fungible, uniform, transportable, have a high value-to-weight ratio, are easily identifiable, are highly durable, and their supplies are relatively steady and predictable) better than PMs. To respond to your last point: Bitcoin is also easier to store "in your house" with less chances of confiscation. If someone looks through your house they'll find you gold storage much easier to however you stored your private keys. Add to that that private keys can be encrypted. Crypto is taking over, simply because it's better :) What if the government says bitcoin transactions are illegal? Maybe they can't confiscate it, but they can shut down its use. Or what if shit hits the fan and the internet doesn't work tomorrow, and all we have is here and now? Also I added an edit to my previous post. Nation states can technically make anything illegal they wish. It'll be difficult to uphold the law though (and will have unexpected side effects such as the rise of the US maffia because of th prohibition). Also, the US has made gold illegal in the past. That has had no long term influence whatsoever. I personally believe the revolution will happen faster if they do fight it so I actually don't mind if they do. I agree with your edit and have never held any PMs for this very reason (I do hold stocks). PMs are just an inflation hedge, nothing more. The reason I do hold Bitcoin is that I believe its extremely undervalued. Once the revolution is done, it will have taken PMs place and I'll likely use it for the cash portion of my portfolio only. If you hold and ounce of gold (or a Bitcoin) for 100 years it's still an ounce of gold (or 1 Bitcoin). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERICOPOLY Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 How are these things going to be taxed in the US? As an asset (like gold): capital gains rates apply As a currency (like Euros): income tax rates apply Bartering? http://money.howstuffworks.com/bartering4.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jb85 Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 How are these things going to be taxed in the US? As an asset (like gold): capital gains rates apply As a currency (like Euros): income tax rates apply Bartering? http://money.howstuffworks.com/bartering4.htm Im still working this issue through in my head, but if proper precautions are taken...bitcoin makes it relatively easy to avoid taxes (especially capital gains). One idea i've heard is that If bitcoin takes off...most taxes would be collected at point of sale...since its easier to regulate merchants than track indiviudal bitcoin holdings. something like a 25% sales tax or something of the sort. still working this all out, so take everything i say with a big grain of salt. Milton friedman (talking in 1999) had an interesting piece on digital currencies where he talks about how they will collect taxes. (its a 2 min video - good part starts at about 2:11 in the video below) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 How are these things going to be taxed in the US? As an asset (like gold): capital gains rates apply As a currency (like Euros): income tax rates apply Bartering? http://money.howstuffworks.com/bartering4.htm Capital gains at the time of selling or spending it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERICOPOLY Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 How are these things going to be taxed in the US? As an asset (like gold): capital gains rates apply As a currency (like Euros): income tax rates apply Bartering? http://money.howstuffworks.com/bartering4.htm Capital gains at the time of selling or spending it. You don't know that do you? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304773104579268322915488180?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories So far, the Internal Revenue Service hasn't ruled on or addressed such issues directly. An agency spokesman released the following statement: "The IRS continues to study virtual currencies and intends to provide some guidance on the tax consequences" of transactions involving them. The agency is also "aware of the potential tax compliance risks posed by virtual currencies," he added. ... Mr. Marian says that he and many other specialists are "stumped" as to how the IRS will rule on bitcoin. He says his own sense is that it's a commodity similar to gold, because there's a finite supply and it's a store of value. He adds that some bitcoin transactions may be akin to barter—which has its own tricky tax rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I responded to the volatility and explained why it's not a problem. Volatility for an investment isn't important, we just require a stronger rate of return. Further extreme volatility is to be expected in something that is as grossly undervalued as Bitcoin and will balance out as the market cap grows. I'm sure the same thing happened to gold when it was first discovered. With our current fast paced society the fluctuations just go a hell of a lot faster :) You claimed overvaluation because it went up fast and then down by ~50% in a few days and I claimed that's not what defines overvaluation. I can't provide a truly accurate valuation besides WAY WAY higher than today. People have done this in the past and continue to do so. This: http://bitcoin-valuation.org/fair-value-bitcoin-28823/ is an example and this ignores most of the uses of Bitcoin and also forgets to inflate the money supply to account for 20 years of inflation. The thing is, if you believe it's overvalued today you must be pretty sure the value is very close to zero as the market cap today is just way too low as a currency. Even if Bitcoin would only replace gold (and Bitcoin is better than gold) the value would be >$300k per Bitcoin given the current market cap of gold. This can be your opinion (that the whole idea behind crypto and probably gold even does not appeal to you at all) but then say so and at least offer the common Keynsian arguments instead of the non-arguments your offering now. You see, I don't think our discussion is very productive in the way we're doing it now :) You are completly missing the point here. Volatility is a problem because it directly interferes with practical use. You think google would have succeeded if they randomly decided to take down their server every other day? We would all be using bing now. You cant compare the value of a currency with a freaking stock price lol. They are 2 different things. People ddidt have to use google stock to pay for stuff for google to be succesfull. And i claim overvalued because of this: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/n-transactions Before anyone besides some hackers and online drugbuyers had ever heard of bitcoin, transactions were pretty much the same as they are now. And no you cant just exclude popular adresses. With 2 periods of big exposure this year, almost no one is using it to pay for stuff. Another thing to prove my point is that bitpay only had 100 million$ in transactions. This may look like alot but consider this chart: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= 100 million$ in volume is literally 4 easy days in july. Or maybe 5 days in january. So if it was like 2 or 3 billion, that would actually show adoption. But everyone i just buying to hoard, and no one buys to pay for stuff. And with 15k merchants accepting it and all the coverage, there is really no excuse for that. My prediction is that this wont become any better next year. Gold has been very successful throughout history but must have been very volatile at the start. So volatility is moot. Transaction volume is a very weak proxy to determine the amount of sales (at the very least right now possibly ever). This includes every transaction, so also me shuffling my coins in my own wallets as part of general bookkeeping, but also moving them to exchanges to sell or trade them (which causes the huge peaks in the graph on the 3 times in history Bitcoin price has risen super-exponentially) and gambling games. The gambling games create a single transaction for every bet made (not just for depositing and withdrawing). It's unfair to use this to determine general purchasing volume as such a purchase only produces 1 transaction in the blockchain. (oh and btw: I'd use this smoothed graphs myself so: https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=7&show_header=true&scale=1&address= and https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7×pan=all&scale=1&address= ) The sales volume of Bitpay is a much better proxy and still low indeed. It did grow substantially. In the end, Bitcoin is greatly undervalued even if no-one will ever use it as a currency (which isn't true today) because merely replacing gold requires a valuation of $300,000 per Bitcoin. And as you may recall: Bitcoin is better than gold http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html ) Anyway, I really doubt we'll come to agreement (see how I just repeated and summarized my argument that volatility is fine?). Let's just let time decide who's right, but we both made the points we wanted to make, now others can do their own due diligence if this sparked their interest :) yeah but gambling is relatively stable. And still, its not much of a difference. And neither graphs really filter out transactions to vendors really well. But id say that with trading gone up, gambling probably at least stable, there is not much of a rise. The number of vendors accepting bitcoin exploded, yet you barely see a rise. I supose we will see in 2014 whos right. The year bitcoin will show wether its usefull or not. Regarding gold, i dont think you understand the value of gold. First reason its valuable is because as a kid you read about pirates searching for gold treasures. People say something is a 'goldmine' when they come up with a new way to make money. And it has been used to exchange value for centuries. Untill we see popular childrens books with pirates looking for bitcoin treasures, bitcoin wont replace gold. It is too ingrained in our culture. Just like you cannot ban alcohol, but you can ban weed. Even though weed is worse for you then alcohol, it just has been around for too long. And besides, bitcoin is not 100% secure, gold is. You can lose passwords with bitcoin, or lose your paper wallet on your USB stick, but its hard to lose gold. It doesnt need an infrastructure. It also function of a way against doomsday scenarios. Bitcoin doesnt have this feature. And the reason people used gold back in the day is because they had no other choice. And its value wasnt as volatile as bitcoin. Why do you think they invented paper currency in the end? Much easier to transact with. And no you didnt answer how the problem of volatility is going to be solved. You remind me a bit of those dot com people back in the day when you asked them about earnings. It will just take care of itself they said. Dont worry about it! So if you consider that bitcoin has all but proven it self as a currency, and that most of the value is because of speculators and emotion, id say bitcoin is pretty overvalued right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 22, 2013 Share Posted December 22, 2013 Regarding gold, i dont think you understand the value of gold. First reason its valuable is because as a kid you read about pirates searching for gold treasures. People say something is a 'goldmine' when they come up with a new way to make money. And it has been used to exchange value for centuries. Untill we see popular childrens books with pirates looking for bitcoin treasures, bitcoin wont replace gold. It is too ingrained in our culture. Just like you cannot ban alcohol, but you can ban weed. Even though weed is worse for you then alcohol, it just has been around for too long. And besides, bitcoin is not 100% secure, gold is. You can lose passwords with bitcoin, or lose your paper wallet on your USB stick, but its hard to lose gold. It doesnt need an infrastructure. It also function of a way against doomsday scenarios. Bitcoin doesnt have this feature. I don't want to sound condescending but you really really don't understand why gold has value. What you describe isn't it at all. In fact, it has nothing to do with it. Secondly, it's gold which isn't secure. Bitcoin is the most secure asset on the planet. Stocks I have to hold with a third party who I need to trust. Gold can easily be stolen (Bitcoin can be encrypted). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoddDisciple Posted December 22, 2013 Share Posted December 22, 2013 Unobtainium now being mine lol! Okay, I do some utility in bitcoins for gambling/poker sites. Then again, I have no idea if any of these are trustworthy, but it makes more sense to be able to remove your earnings whenever you want instead of holding the money on the site. Then again, I've read that US people are still able to play poker, it's just that they have to do a really roundabout way of funding with like say a credit card or wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 23, 2013 Share Posted December 23, 2013 FYI: http://www.ofnumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/medium_transactioncosts1.jpg The blog post accompanying is a good read too http://www.ofnumbers.com/2013/12/18/charles-stross-takes-on-the-bitcoin-community/ (I actually like Charles Stross as a SF author) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hielko Posted December 23, 2013 Share Posted December 23, 2013 Secondly, it's gold which isn't secure. Bitcoin is the most secure asset on the planet. Stocks I have to hold with a third party who I need to trust. Gold can easily be stolen (Bitcoin can be encrypted). I think security is possible the biggest problem that Bitcoins face. Fact: the average person is unable to keep his computer secure. Implication: the average person cannot ever keep his bitcoins on his own pc, so they have to rely on third parties, but using third parties negates many of the positives of bitcoins: it wouldn't be very different than using fiat money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted December 23, 2013 Share Posted December 23, 2013 Secondly, it's gold which isn't secure. Bitcoin is the most secure asset on the planet. Stocks I have to hold with a third party who I need to trust. Gold can easily be stolen (Bitcoin can be encrypted). I think security is possible the biggest problem that Bitcoins face. Fact: the average person is unable to keep his computer secure. Implication: the average person cannot ever keep his bitcoins on his own pc, so they have to rely on third parties, but using third parties negates many of the positives of bitcoins: it wouldn't be very different than using fiat money. yeah and there is the problem of volatility. Who wants to use a currency that shoots up and down 50%. Most people on this board are well off, but most people have a tight budget. ANd losing 50% of your money overnight could be pretty bad. And when that problem exists people wont use it as a currency. I havent seen one single good argument against this. It will exist as a currency for illegal things to buy over the internet, and as a daytrading commodity. But not much more I predict. The other day I bought a game of steam, and i was able to use literally like 7 different payment methods. And they are all insanely easy an cheap to use. They are all easier to set up and use in every way then bitcoin. And also cheaper (except creditcard). So it doesnt really fill a need. I think the reason it is so popular now is because people like the concept that the FED cannot fk with it. But once that blows over like 2 or 3 years from now, and inflation stays at a few %, and the economy is steaming again, bitcoins popularity will go down alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benhacker Posted December 24, 2013 Share Posted December 24, 2013 Watchword, Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. I appreciate hearing the educated bull case for BTC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jb85 Posted December 24, 2013 Share Posted December 24, 2013 I think the reason it is so popular now is because people like the concept that the FED cannot fk with it. But once that blows over like 2 or 3 years from now, and inflation stays at a few %, and the economy is steaming again, bitcoins popularity will go down alot. bitcoin is largely borderless. Again, if bitcoin were to succeeed in a few small countries and completely fail in the united states, then it would still be quite valuable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orange Posted December 24, 2013 Share Posted December 24, 2013 And the madness continues! http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/dogecoin-brings-the-cryptocurrency-craze-to-its-logical-conclusion Dogecoin is very similar to bitcoin, except it was started as a joke based off of the Doge meme http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/doge. And now the total value of all mined dogecoins is $2,538,701. Does anyone see the viability of all these crypto currencies? Maybe one or two make sense, but it starts going off into bizarre world when a currency seemingly backed by internet sarcasm is worth over 2 million dollars. Maybe I'll just buy a few for kicks. Dogecoins have tripled in price in the week it's been since you posted this. Hopefully you bought a few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 24, 2013 Share Posted December 24, 2013 Watchword, Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. I appreciate hearing the educated bull case for BTC. You're welcome :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wachtwoord Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/31/fortress-is-forming-a-bitcoin-fund/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoddDisciple Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Waiting on my Coinbase transfer to go though and then buying a little ($50-$100) in all 85+ cryptocurrencies, and holding 1 BTC :P Hope this Bitcoin New Year's Bash mentioned in the article doesn't make my gamble even more expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
compoundinglife Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Waiting on my Coinbase transfer to go though and then buying a little ($50-$100) in all 85+ cryptocurrencies, and holding 1 BTC :P Hope this Bitcoin New Year's Bash mentioned in the article doesn't make my gamble even more expensive. Good luck. Which exchanges are you using to buy the non-btc currencies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoddDisciple Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Good luck. Which exchanges are you using to buy the non-btc currencies? I guess Cryptsy. I don't see many other options with as many options. At least they're in the US and could potentially be sued via class action if there is some really bad tomfoolery. I am also looking at getting a little in each cryptostock, but have to find a place I feel at least semi-OK with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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