Bitcoin goes down, down, down

greyed.out.fields · Unread post by **greyed.out.fields** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:12 am

Kelly Martin wrote:
EricBarbour wrote:And just remember, Bitcoin is a "net libertarian's dream come true". Its failure will expose the inherent idiocy of "net libertarianism".
What has always amused me about bitcoin is it that (aside from all the people who use it for moneylaundering and for trade in illicit goods) it is used by people who don't trust other people, as consideration for contracts that inherently require trust (all contracts require trust). By and large, these are people who, when given any chance to screw the other sucker, will do so. And so they do, routinely. And they justify it by the belief that if the other guy had the chance, he'd screw him too.

Libertarians and their contradictory attitude toward contract, trust, and enforcement, amuse the hell out of me.

Quite.

Look closely at a "libertarian", and you'll see someone who simply wants to do what they like and doesn't give a damn about the consequences for anyone else.

And anyone who got burned by Bitcoin: sorry, but you just weren't libertarian enough.

Unread post by **Midsize Jake** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:12 am

greyed.out.fields wrote:And anyone who got burned by Bitcoin: sorry, but you just weren't libertarian enough.

A fairly large percentage of those people are citizens of the People's Republic of China, who basically just wanted to put their money in something that wasn't controlled by the central government. As such they wouldn't necessarily be "libertarians" in the Ayn Rand, anarcho-capitalist sense of the term, so I guess that means you're correct, though they're not really trying to be libertarians in that sense either. They were probably just looking for a higher rate of return than they could get from government-sanctioned investments, which (if I'm not mistaken) are intentionally limited.

I'm sure there's a fair amount of irony involved, though I'm hard-pressed to explain it at the moment.

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:56 am

Midsize Jake wrote: I'm sure there's a fair amount of irony involved, though I'm hard-pressed to explain it at the moment.

Well Rand had a deep hatred for the Bolsheviks that stole her mummies jewellery, so Randoids stealing from ex Maoist has a sort of circularity to it.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 5:39 pm

Midsize Jake wrote:I have only the vaguest idea as to what I'm talking about so I could easily be wrong.

Careful! People might think you're a Wikipedia editor.

Cedric · Unread post by **Cedric** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 6:37 pm

Uh-oh.

Malleus · Unread post by **Malleus** » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:38 pm

lilburne wrote:
Midsize Jake wrote: I'm sure there's a fair amount of irony involved, though I'm hard-pressed to explain it at the moment.
Well Rand had a deep hatred for the Bolsheviks that stole her mummies jewellery, so Randoids stealing from ex Maoist has a sort of circularity to it.

I have a Dutch friend whose grandmother never forgave the Germans for stealing her bicycle during the Second World War. But I guess Rand's mother's jewellery was worth more than a bike.

TungstenCarbide · Unread post by **TungstenCarbide** » Thu Mar 06, 2014 7:46 pm

Bitcoin firm CEO found dead in suspected suicide

TungstenCarbide · Unread post by **TungstenCarbide** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:34 am

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... D820140307

"A Japanese American man thought to be the reclusive multi-millionaire father of Bitcoin emerged from a modest Southern California home and denied involvement with the digital currency before leading reporters on a freeway car chase to the local headquarters of the Associated Press."

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:56 am

TungstenCarbide wrote:"A Japanese American man thought to be the reclusive multi-millionaire father of Bitcoin emerged from a modest Southern California home and denied involvement with the digital currency before leading reporters on a freeway car chase to the local headquarters of the Associated Press."

Freeway chase? WTF? You'd think they would have eased off that sort of thing after killing Princess Diana. Then again, considering the subsequent uptick in newspaper sales, maybe not.

Reuters wrote:Dozens of reporters, including a sprinkling of Japanese media, encircled and camped outside the man's two-story house on Thursday morning, accosting the mailman and repeatedly ringing the doorbell, to no avail.

I'm sure the mailman appreciated that.

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:48 am

Reuters wrote:Dozens of reporters, including a sprinkling of Japanese media, encircled and camped outside the man's two-story house on Thursday morning, accosting the mailman and repeatedly ringing the doorbell, to no avail.

"professional journalist" = putz. The paparazzi method has influenced the entire field.

Johnny Au · Unread post by **Johnny Au** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 5:30 am

EricBarbour wrote:
Reuters wrote:Dozens of reporters, including a sprinkling of Japanese media, encircled and camped outside the man's two-story house on Thursday morning, accosting the mailman and repeatedly ringing the doorbell, to no avail.
"professional journalist" = putz. The paparazzi method has influenced the entire field.

Not just that, but many "professional journalists" use Twitter than use actual news (and Twitter is very much the online equivalent of the paparazzi method).

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 11:28 am

Weeks round up down in bitcoin world from the register

MtGox:
British law firm Selachii has been gathering names for a class action suit against the exchange and its chief exec Mark Karpeles and says it has over 400 people interested in suing. Richard Howlett,
...
"Bitcoin bank" Flexcoin:

has told its customers that the theft of $610,000 worth of its e-cash had bankrupted it:

As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately.
...
Poloniex:
has copped to losing 10 per cent of its Bitcoins after being hacked, although its chief Tristan D'Agosta – aka Busoni – has promised to pay folks back- just as soon as he can get the cash together.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/07 ... g_march_7/

TungstenCarbide · Unread post by **TungstenCarbide** » Fri Mar 07, 2014 8:32 pm

Doxing: An Etymology

Today, as it made its return as a print publication, Newsweek published a blockbuster story: It unveiled the identity of the founder of Bitcoin.

This was a big deal. That founder, after all, had long been an enigma. It's been—in nerdier circles—something of a parlor game to speculate about who he or she might be.

Bitcoin founder unmasked? Newsweek writer stands by story after Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto's denials

Redditors furious Newsweek ‘doxxed’ Bitcoin founder

It was only while scouring a database that contained the registration cards of naturalized U.S. citizens that a Satoshi Nakamoto turned up whose profile and background offered a potential match. But it was not until after ordering his records from the National Archives and conducting many more interviews that a cohesive picture began to take shape.

Two weeks before our meeting in Temple City, I struck up an email correspondence with Satoshi Nakamoto, mostly discussing his interest in upgrading and modifying model steam trains with computer-aided design technologies. I obtained Nakamoto’s email through a company he buys model trains from.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment ... kamoto_is/

Unread post by **Zoloft** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:21 am

Forbes cheer-leading for BitCoin by listing all its failures: link

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Read more here: link

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:17 pm

Stop the gravy train, Jimbo wants to get on!

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:41 pm

Hex wrote:Stop the gravy train, Jimbo wants to get on!

jimmywales1 wrote:It seems very unlikely to me that total transactions costs would be lower than credit card transactions fees for us with BTC. Currency conversion alone is not frictionless.

I'd be interested to see a thoughtful analysis of the two, from someone who has experience and understands the real costs of both.

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:22 pm

"The BTC community is pretty close-knit and generous", writes Jimmy. I wonder how large he expects this Libertarian army to be that aren't currently donating because Bitcoin isn't an option.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:31 pm

Hex wrote:"The BTC community is pretty close-knit and generous", writes Jimmy. I wonder how large he expects this Libertarian army to be that aren't currently donating because Bitcoin isn't an option.

Bitcoin as a donation source is going to be just about as successful as Wikia search.

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:03 am

TungstenCarbide wrote:http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment ... kamoto_is/

That is actually a hilarious thread. Redditors at their incoherent, angry, spluttering worst. As expected, they appear to be a bunch of snotty teenagers, which they probably are.

Mancunium · Unread post by **Mancunium** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:31 am

Bitcoin confidence game is a Ponzi scheme for the 21st century
ZDNet, 11 March 2014 link

Summary: It's captured the imaginations of enthusiasts all too ready to exchange it for real-world goods, but recent and repeated hacks of Bitcoin's underlying elements suggest the virtual currency is no more real than the Ponzi schemes of yesteryear – and it's only a matter of time until the faithful get burnt.

Well, colour me surprised. A virtual currency, backed by absolutely nothing except the fierce belief in the integrity of a complex mathematical formula few of its proponents even understand, is proving to be little more trustworthy than the Zimbabwe dollar after hackers tested and defeated controls put in place to manage it fall at the first hurdle. In developments that should surprise nobody, the disastrous decline of Mt Gox –which has filed for bankruptcy in the US after being systematically owned and dismembered by hackers – has been followed by hackers' theft of 12.3 percent of the Bitcoin stored at the Poloniex exchange. This is the third Bitcoin exchange to fall already, and the hackers are only just getting started. [...]

Some of the people jumping into Bitcoin at this early date may be hoping to amass a treasure trove of virtual currency on the hopes that increasing future demand will turn them into real-world millionaires overnight. [...] Sure, everybody likes to make a quick buck. But to pretend that Bitcoin is magically worthy of investment like long-established and carefully-regulated currencies like the British pound or US or Australian dollar, is nothing more than madness. Bitcoin is not a fiat currency and what it resembles, more than currency, is the notorious Ponzi schemes whose value was entirely based on the continuous addition of new investors whose principal funded returns for earlier investors. Bitcoin will be the same: as level-headed investors realise they are better to put their money in commodities whose value can not be compromised in seconds by clever hackers, the currency so enthusiastically embraced by today's punters that there's a cottage industry around Bitcoin ATMs will see demand drop so quickly that it will become all but valueless to anybody but the most optimistic speculators. [...]

Many digital-era counterculteralists argue Bitcoin's essential beauty is not only its virtual nature but the fact that it is decentralised, unregulated, and uncontrollable. Yet no viable currency can properly function without layer upon layer of careful control. [...] Bitcoin is not the US dollar, nor even the Zimbabwe dollar: it is the Santa Claus of currency, something whose very importance in society relies not on physical evidence but on the power of collective belief. With one core part of the Bitcoin ecosystem falling after another and Mt Gox already responsible for fleecing thousands of outraged customers out of $US446 million – enough to make even Ivan Boesky or Michael Milken wince – it seems hard to envision a future for Bitcoin that is much more than a speculator's paradise.

dogbiscuit · Unread post by **dogbiscuit** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 5:45 pm

Mancunium wrote:Bitcoin confidence game is a Ponzi scheme for the 21st century
ZDNet, 11 March 2014 link
Summary: It's captured the imaginations of enthusiasts all too ready to exchange it for real-world goods, but recent and repeated hacks of Bitcoin's underlying elements suggest the virtual currency is no more real than the Ponzi schemes of yesteryear – and it's only a matter of time until the faithful get burnt.

Well, colour me surprised. A virtual currency, backed by absolutely nothing except the fierce belief in the integrity of a complex mathematical formula few of its proponents even understand, is proving to be little more trustworthy than the Zimbabwe dollar after hackers tested and defeated controls put in place to manage it fall at the first hurdle. In developments that should surprise nobody, the disastrous decline of Mt Gox –which has filed for bankruptcy in the US after being systematically owned and dismembered by hackers – has been followed by hackers' theft of 12.3 percent of the Bitcoin stored at the Poloniex exchange. This is the third Bitcoin exchange to fall already, and the hackers are only just getting started. [...]

Some of the people jumping into Bitcoin at this early date may be hoping to amass a treasure trove of virtual currency on the hopes that increasing future demand will turn them into real-world millionaires overnight. [...] Sure, everybody likes to make a quick buck. But to pretend that Bitcoin is magically worthy of investment like long-established and carefully-regulated currencies like the British pound or US or Australian dollar, is nothing more than madness. Bitcoin is not a fiat currency and what it resembles, more than currency, is the notorious Ponzi schemes whose value was entirely based on the continuous addition of new investors whose principal funded returns for earlier investors. Bitcoin will be the same: as level-headed investors realise they are better to put their money in commodities whose value can not be compromised in seconds by clever hackers, the currency so enthusiastically embraced by today's punters that there's a cottage industry around Bitcoin ATMs will see demand drop so quickly that it will become all but valueless to anybody but the most optimistic speculators. [...]

Many digital-era counterculteralists argue Bitcoin's essential beauty is not only its virtual nature but the fact that it is decentralised, unregulated, and uncontrollable. Yet no viable currency can properly function without layer upon layer of careful control. [...] Bitcoin is not the US dollar, nor even the Zimbabwe dollar: it is the Santa Claus of currency, something whose very importance in society relies not on physical evidence but on the power of collective belief. With one core part of the Bitcoin ecosystem falling after another and Mt Gox already responsible for fleecing thousands of outraged customers out of $US446 million – enough to make even Ivan Boesky or Michael Milken wince – it seems hard to envision a future for Bitcoin that is much more than a speculator's paradise.

Considering half a billion dollars has vanished, isn't it of interest that we are not hearing more significant noises from those who have lost money? I suspect this might be because of the dubious business interests of the investors.

Be rather amusing if the hackers turned out to be NSA doing a bit of freelance asset sequestration.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 6:48 pm

dogbiscuit wrote:Be rather amusing if the hackers turned out to be NSA doing a bit of freelance asset sequestration.

Use it to finance the next Contra scandal.

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:27 pm

An old article, but I hadn't seen it: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

For every video he watches, Angle gets 0.00004 bitcoins, or about half a cent, thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips. He can watch up to 12 videos a day, which gets him to about six cents. And he can beef up this daily take with Bitcoin Tapper, a mobile app that doles out about 0.000133 bitcoins a day — a couple of pennies — if he just taps on a digital icon over and over again.

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:55 pm

Yeah, I remember that.

For every video he watches, Angle gets 0.00004 bitcoins, or about half a cent, thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips. He can watch up to 12 videos a day, which gets him to about six cents. And he can beef up this daily take with Bitcoin Tapper, a mobile app that doles out about 0.000133 bitcoins a day — a couple of pennies — if he just taps on a digital icon over and over again.

So out of date! These days, 0.00004 bitcoins is about 2.5c. So that's a whole 30c a day from videos, plus another 8.5c from tapping that icon. Living the new economy dream!

Also - you guys have power sockets on the outside of buildings? You could never be a bitcoin hobo over here, recharging is something you can't do on the street.

Kelly Martin · Unread post by **Kelly Martin** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:07 pm

Hex wrote:Also - you guys have power sockets on the outside of buildings? You could never be a bitcoin hobo over here, recharging is something you can't do on the street.

Solar charging panels.

Bielle · Unread post by **Bielle** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:14 pm

Hex wrote:Yeah, I remember that.
For every video he watches, Angle gets 0.00004 bitcoins, or about half a cent, thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips. He can watch up to 12 videos a day, which gets him to about six cents. And he can beef up this daily take with Bitcoin Tapper, a mobile app that doles out about 0.000133 bitcoins a day — a couple of pennies — if he just taps on a digital icon over and over again.
So out of date! These days, 0.00004 bitcoins is about 2.5c. So that's a whole 30c a day from videos, plus another 8.5c from tapping that icon. Living the new economy dream!

Also - you guys have power sockets on the outside of buildings? You could never be a bitcoin hobo over here, recharging is something you can't do on the street.

There are power outlets in outdoor shopping-plaza parking lots in the central provinces of Canada at each car space.

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:32 pm

Bielle wrote: There are power outlets in outdoor shopping-plaza parking lots in the central provinces of Canada at each car space.

So civilized. I envy you.

Ha ha haa!!! I just found this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tonal_Bitcoin

Tonal Bitcoin is a representation of the Bitcoin network aimed toward providing a use-case for adoption of Bitcoin to people who prefer the Tonal system (T-H-L).

The what?

The Tonal system is a base 16 system of notation (predating hexadecimal), arithmetic, and metrology proposed in 1859 by John W. Nystrom. ...

He proposed names for the digits, calling zero "noll" and counting (from one to sixteen):
"An, de, ti, go, su, by, ra, me, ni, ko, hu, vy, la, po, fy, ton." (Therefore tonal system.)

Because hexadecimal requires sixteen digits, Nystrom supplemented the existing decimal digits 0 through 8 with his own invented characters.

HEY GUYS STOP EATING DINNER. I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS COOL NEW CURRENCY THAT'S EASY TO USE, YOU JUST HAVE TO REMEMBER THESE MADE UP NAMES AND SYMBOLS INSTEAD OF NORMAL NUMBERS

cyofee · Unread post by **cyofee** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:00 pm

What we've learned so far from Bitcoin:

The distributed, eventually-consistent blockchain anchored by mining works and is quite robust against attack. Nobody has yet successfully attacked the basic Bitcoin system and stolen money. So the low level technology appears to be secure.
Irrevocable, remote, anonymous transactions are the con man's dream. Especially when they're assocated with a whole community of suckers who think anonymous anarchy is a good idea. The scam level in the Bitcoin world is huge. Over half the exchanges have gone under, and that was before Mt. Gox. Bitcoin-oriented "stocks" and "Ponzis" have an even worse record.
Personal computers are not secure enough to store money. "Bitcoin wallet stealers" are a major problem. Many "online wallet" services turned out to be scams. Storing Bitcoins safely while still being able to use them is quite hard.
Volatility is far too high for Bitcoin to be a useful currency. Since last October, Bitcoin has gone from $100/BTC to $1100/BTC to $600/BTC. Daily variation often exceeds 10%. The companies that accept Bitcoin for real products have to reprice every few minutes. Bitcoin behaves like a pink sheet stock. Too many speculators, not enough real customers.
There are scaling problems. Currently, every user has to have a complete copy of the entire transaction journal back to the first Bitcoin, and has to keep up with all the transactions as they happen. The confirmation process has a 7 transaction per second limit. Confirmations take about half an hour before they can be trusted; longer during busy periods.
"Mining" is more centralized than expected. The original idea was that "mining" would be a spare-time activity of each user's computer. In practice, "mining" is done in large data centers with custom water-cooled ASIC chips. Two mining pools control more than half of Bitcoin's mining capacity, and they have the power to set fees and change the rules.

All great points.

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 11:22 pm

Stuff about electric cars split yonder.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:22 am

Does anyone know anything about Ukash (T-H-L)? According to their own web site, they have received three consecutive Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, an astonishing achievement. But I can't find anything about them on any site I'd trust, which is bizarre for an allegedly outstanding company.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:06 pm

Poetlister wrote:Does anyone know anything about Ukash (T-H-L)? According to their own web site, they have received three consecutive Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, an astonishing achievement. But I can't find anything about them on any site I'd trust, which is bizarre for an allegedly outstanding company.

How did you choose the "Electric cars" thread for this question?

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:32 pm

thekohser wrote:
Poetlister wrote:Does anyone know anything about Ukash (T-H-L)? According to their own web site, they have received three consecutive Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, an astonishing achievement. But I can't find anything about them on any site I'd trust, which is bizarre for an allegedly outstanding company.
How did you choose the "Electric cars" thread for this question?

I was looking for a thread sbout Bitcoin and the post above mine has "Bitcoin goes down, down, down" as its subject. Blame sloppy thread-splitting.

Unread post by **Zoloft** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:33 pm

I am fixing titles and splitting.

Edit: and all done. PM me if you want any now-obsolete posts removed.

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:13 pm

From the IRS: Bitcoins are property, not currency and trading them is subject to cap. gains/losses.

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:47 pm

Mt. Gox liquidates

Hey,

but

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:57 pm

Good news: Bitcoin is no longer the worst investment in the world.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:02 pm

Ming wrote:Good news: Bitcoin is no longer the worst investment in the world.

My investment in "Jimbo for Florida Senate" memorabilia begs to differ.
Also that TShirt.

eagle · Unread post by **eagle** » Wed Jun 04, 2014 4:05 am

For those of you who want to offer financial support to the Chapter(s) that banned Greg, Wikimedia NYC now accepts bitcoin. link

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 9:04 am

Oh mama.....
"The crooks at KnCMiner.com have unleashed a artillery of scams, threats and censoring on their customers."

-KnCMiner sending out hardware not even correctly essambled, using rubber bands to hold compents together. To top stuff off, they are blaming the carreir, stating that if they had not been so wreckless if handling, that the rubber band holding the head sinks and other components to the board, would have been good enough

Does Bitcoin make you both stupid with your (real) money, and verbally incoherent? Or does it just attract morons? I vote for both.

It ended up on the Buttcoin blog, good place for it too.

Cedric · Unread post by **Cedric** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:53 pm

EricBarbour wrote:Oh mama.....
"The crooks at KnCMiner.com have unleashed a artillery of scams, threats and censoring on their customers."
-KnCMiner sending out hardware not even correctly essambled, using rubber bands to hold compents together. To top stuff off, they are blaming the carreir, stating that if they had not been so wreckless if handling, that the rubber band holding the head sinks and other components to the board, would have been good enough
Does Bitcoin make you both stupid with your (real) money, and verbally incoherent? Or does it just attract morons? I vote for both.

It ended up on the Buttcoin blog, good place for it too.

Why should anyone want their hardware essambled? Sounds rather nasty.

tkovala · Unread post by **tkovala** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:58 pm

EricBarbour wrote:It ended up on the Buttcoin blog, good place for it too.

Bitcoin, the national currency of the Fedoral Republic of Euphoria. The Buttcoin blog has some of the funniest shit I've seen in a long while. These setups look like attempts at outsider art: http://buttcoin.org/mining-rigs-3

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:25 pm

-KnCMiner sending out hardware not even correctly essambled, using rubber bands to hold compents together. To top stuff off, they are blaming the carreir, stating that if they had not been so wreckless if handling, that the rubber band holding the head sinks and other components to the board, would have been good enough

I'd have thought being wreckless, i.e. not wrecking anything, was a virtue in a carreir.

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 12:14 pm

tkovala wrote:the Fedoral Republic of Euphoria

Hah.

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:52 pm

Want an official valuation of Bitcoin? The US marshals are holding an auction.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Jun 14, 2014 11:46 am

One of my contacts in Hong Kong tells me that Bitcoin is taking off there, and is more or less treated as a real currency by some people.

link

DanMurphy · Unread post by **DanMurphy** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 5:06 pm

Bitcoin is now at about $190, below its price at the time the greater fool surge began.

Adding to its woes is that a lot of crypto-kiddies borrowed money to set up mining operations, with business models relying on bitcoin values of $1,000 and more. The price of "mining" bitcoin, by design, constantly goes up, irrespective of the market value of bitcoin.

This has made the people who lent these kids money nervous, and they're forcing the kids to sell their existing stockpiles of bitcoin into a vicious bear market.

Who coulda sawn it coming?

Jim · Unread post by **Jim** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 5:19 pm

Poetlister wrote:One of my contacts in Hong Kong tells me that Bitcoin is taking off there, and is more or less treated as a real currency by some people.
link http://www.coindesk.com/hong-kong-launc ... atm-today/[/link]

One of my contacts in this galaxy tells me that one of your contacts in Hong Kong should tell those "some people" to use their bitcoin to buy cash.
(disclaimer:financial advice given in an anonymous forum is worth nothing)

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Wed Jan 14, 2015 8:29 pm

Jim wrote:
Poetlister wrote:One of my contacts in Hong Kong tells me that Bitcoin is taking off there, and is more or less treated as a real currency by some people.
link http://www.coindesk.com/hong-kong-launc ... atm-today/[/link]
One of my contacts in this galaxy tells me that one of your contacts in Hong Kong should tell those "some people" to use their bitcoin to buy cash.
(disclaimer:financial advice given in an anonymous forum is worth nothing)

I expect he had enough sense not to own any.

DanMurphy · Unread post by **DanMurphy** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:51 pm

For some reason I engaged with a bitcoinista on the twitters. He was saying that high volatility is not relevant to the popularity and usefulness of mediums of exchange. I, uhm, disagreed. He asked if I used bitcoin. I said I didn't because there was no transactions that would be more convenient for me with it. He said "yes there are." I said, "n-uh."

He then said (not making this up): "You do not have a choice to see the truth differently, it just is the way it is; thats the nature of truth." He then went on to explain that I was an irrational and dogmatic thinker. It went on a bit. He insisted that bitcoin makes sense for me. I asked how. He asked me if I ever transfer money. I said yes, occasionally, to Nyala, Sudan. I pointed out my correspondent there needed dollars in hand. He said bitcoin could that instantly for 0.1%. I said, how. He then told me I'd have to buy bitcoin first and he'd show me. I said no thanks. He concluded with this:

I can only hep you if you want to be helped. By accepting my help, you can help others.

He didn't understand when I told him he reminded me of a Jehovah's Witness at the door.

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Thu Jan 15, 2015 10:32 pm

DanMurphy wrote:He then said (not making this up): "You do not have a choice to see the truth differently, it just is the way it is; thats the nature of truth." He then went on to explain that I was an irrational and dogmatic thinker.

Sadly, I believe this. Difference: the Jehovah's Witnesses have had a century to refine their proselytizing methods in the face of endless hostile responses, especially to their door-to-door campaign. The Bitcoin nerds, like the open-source software and crowdsourcing fanatics, haven't been at it very long. So they merely look like arrogant fools.

(Mormon proselytizing has also been going on for more than a century, but it doesn't seem to be quite as well-organized. More like a "hazing ritual" for young males in the church. The Bitcoiner tried to "haze" you, Dan, you should feel "grateful" that he cared enough.

)

I dunno about you, but any sane and careful investor who saw the "official Bitcoin price index" would say it was a scam. After peaking at more than $1000 late in 2013, it's been slowly trending downward. And the value crashed from $269 to $173 this week and is slowly recovering. A 35% loss in three days. If that were the Dow Jones, Wall Street people would be jumping out of their office windows right now.