I have to say the crypto community is fun.

"Bearwhale"

(10-14-2014 05:34 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  I have to say the crypto community is fun.

"Bearwhale"

I am glad that you are having fun - but if you have NOT noticed, the last few weeks have been a battle for a trend reversal- actually one can argue that such battle has been going on for the past 5-9 weeks - however, the last couple of weeks have gotten more intense and I believe that the bullwhales are gonna get this one in the next week or two.. and create sufficient upward momentum to take bitcoin prices up and beyond the mid-$600's so you, El Mech, can be relieved of your burdensome bitcoins.

In any event BTC prices will likely progress higher, much beyond the mid-$600s price range, but I still do NOT have much of any better clue now as compared to 10 months ago about the direction of BTC in the short term.. although, my purchasing behavior shows that I have much greater confidence in a lot of the BTC fundamentals in recent months and much greater confidence that prices are going to head in an upward direction.

Accordingly, since May/June-ish and to date, I have been increasing my BTC purchases... so now it takes quite a bit of extra money to bring down further my average price per BTC, which is currently about $571. Certainly, my average price per BTC would have been much lower had I possessed sufficient foresight regarding the price drop to $275... and to have purchased more in that $275 price range, rather than in the $500s and $600s.... but who the fuck would have thunk? There are a few people who may have been able to know (probably mostly the bearwhale manipulators), but even in June, it appeared that we were heading for a price trend reversal (towards the upwards).

Jay I said fun. Make shorter posts for me. If I made one post as descriptive as one of your normal posts it would take me all day.

I think JJ Roberts is the "Bearminnow"

(10-14-2014 06:42 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  Jay I said fun. Make shorter posts for me. If I made one post as descriptive as one of your normal posts it would take me all day.

I think JJ Roberts is the "Bearminnow"

O.K. if TL; DR... then what I said was BTC prices are in a trend reversal and on their way up. For further explanation of conditionals to my current prediction, read my above more detailed post.

Regarding "bearminnows": I have doubts about whether they would have any meaningful affect on the market prices - yet I suppose every little bit contributes.... as they say, the trend is your friend...

^ Awesome!

Maybe JJ got spooked and sold at 301 prolly

(10-14-2014 08:16 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  Maybe JJ got spooked and sold at 301 prolly

I have to admit that these recent weeks have been pretty scary. I was of the belief that BTC prices would NOT go below $360-ish.. and even those lows were pushing it... but yep, they went nearly $90 below that, and even the upward price spike of the last few days doesn't seem to have staying power... I will probably buy more in the $380s, if prices return that low in the coming days.

Continuing discussion from "Stock Market 2014" thread:

(10-22-2014 09:41 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

kufu Wrote:Since June bitcoin fell over 30%, costs around 390$ now (and we all remember when it was over 1000$ at the beginning of the year). My question is whether you think it's pretty much end of the hype about bitcoin for the foreseeable future and it will slowly keep going down or you see some events on the horizon which may significantly increase it's price?

This is a question probably better suited for the Bitcoin thread as myself and a few others have been pondering/debating this very issue.

I would agree that Bitcoin is kind of out of the mainstreams consiousness. If you remember a year back every article in business magazines, investing magazines, blogs, yahoo cover stories were all about Bitcoin going sky hihg, about bitcoin exchanges getting hacked, people throwing out USB drives with several million Dollars worth of BTC.

Those stories were all just sensationalist garbage and actually made Bitcoin look bad. The stories about how bitcoins are unsafe because MtGox stole peoples coins made it appear to the general public that Bitcoins were flawed when in reality someone at an exchange stole peoples money. That would be like if scottrade stole someones money and then everyone said don't use the stock market because its flawed. The market isn't flawed that particular broker is.

Part of me thinks its bad we aren't getting the hype and mainstrema media and what have you following Bitcoin however at the same time that didn't really do anything good for BTC except for spur speculation and people buying it just for the novelty of it neither of which really means anything for the furthering or stability of Bitcoin. I actually think its kind of good were finding some stability and hopefully forming a bottom as opposed to 600 to 1200 to 800 to 500.

I can attest to the fact that bitcoin does have practical use and is used and critical to many industries that have trouble with traditional banking. A perfect example is I have some friends who are in the business of exporting electronics and cellphones to China and ohter places where they can get much more money for them. Its difficult if not nearly impossible to get a bank account setup to be sending wires to or receiving wires from China, especially larger wires. Many export businesses like this operate with Bitcoin, they receive their payment in Bitcoins and then turn btc into dollars right away.

Regarding your statement:

Quote:Many export businesses like this operate with Bitcoin, they receive their payment in Bitcoins and then turn btc into dollars right away.

This is actually not very good for bitcoin itself. As long as people using it don't develop enough trust for it to actually keep their cash in form of btc, it won't be getting any value.

From the other side, it's definitely positive that there are some real scenarios where it's used though and trust might be developed over the time, especially when people use it on the regular basis...

When there will be more bitcoin in use, speculation will be harder and the price will be less volatile, people will be less afraid to actually keep bitcoins which will cause natural, steady growth as opposed to extreme tops and downs which we were seeing recently.

I'm actually thinking about getting few more bitcoins at this point, but am still hesitating, wanted to pick your brains on this.

(10-22-2014 10:15 AM)kufu Wrote:  Continuing discussion from "Stock Market 2014" thread:

(10-22-2014 09:41 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

kufu Wrote:Since June bitcoin fell over 30%, costs around 390$ now (and we all remember when it was over 1000$ at the beginning of the year). My question is whether you think it's pretty much end of the hype about bitcoin for the foreseeable future and it will slowly keep going down or you see some events on the horizon which may significantly increase it's price?

This is a question probably better suited for the Bitcoin thread as myself and a few others have been pondering/debating this very issue.

I would agree that Bitcoin is kind of out of the mainstreams consiousness. If you remember a year back every article in business magazines, investing magazines, blogs, yahoo cover stories were all about Bitcoin going sky hihg, about bitcoin exchanges getting hacked, people throwing out USB drives with several million Dollars worth of BTC.

Those stories were all just sensationalist garbage and actually made Bitcoin look bad. The stories about how bitcoins are unsafe because MtGox stole peoples coins made it appear to the general public that Bitcoins were flawed when in reality someone at an exchange stole peoples money. That would be like if scottrade stole someones money and then everyone said don't use the stock market because its flawed. The market isn't flawed that particular broker is.

Part of me thinks its bad we aren't getting the hype and mainstrema media and what have you following Bitcoin however at the same time that didn't really do anything good for BTC except for spur speculation and people buying it just for the novelty of it neither of which really means anything for the furthering or stability of Bitcoin. I actually think its kind of good were finding some stability and hopefully forming a bottom as opposed to 600 to 1200 to 800 to 500.

I can attest to the fact that bitcoin does have practical use and is used and critical to many industries that have trouble with traditional banking. A perfect example is I have some friends who are in the business of exporting electronics and cellphones to China and ohter places where they can get much more money for them. Its difficult if not nearly impossible to get a bank account setup to be sending wires to or receiving wires from China, especially larger wires. Many export businesses like this operate with Bitcoin, they receive their payment in Bitcoins and then turn btc into dollars right away.

Regarding your statement:

Quote:Many export businesses like this operate with Bitcoin, they receive their payment in Bitcoins and then turn btc into dollars right away.

This is actually not very good for bitcoin itself. As long as people using it don't develop enough trust for it to actually keep their cash in form of btc, it won't be getting any value.

From the other side, it's definitely positive that there are some real scenarios where it's used though and trust might be developed over the time, especially when people use it on the regular basis...

When there will be more bitcoin in use, speculation will be harder and the price will be less volatile, people will be less afraid to actually keep bitcoins which will cause natural, steady growth as opposed to extreme tops and downs which we were seeing recently.

I'm actually thinking about getting few more bitcoins at this point, but am still hesitating, wanted to pick your brains on this.

I just threw out there the idea of immediately converting into Dollars, however some people probably sit on their profits and speculate. I think one problem is bitcoin isn't widespread enough to where I can accept bitcoin for payment and also use those same bitcoins to spend on things I need to run my business. for example, the post office or fedex isn't going to let me pay for my shipping in bitcoins so I need dollars for that. not everyone I buy cellphones from is going to accept bitcoins so I'm going to need cash for them. Even if I don't want to take my profits out into dollars to run a business, pay suppliers, etc unless they alll acccepted bitcoin one would need to convert btc to dollars to get money to operate. Also most businesses are working on fairly small margins so the fluctuation you made off product could be wiped out in a day or a matter of hours.

If I'm selling ebooks or something where its almost 100% profit by all means I'd keep my money in btc as it was all profit, on the other hand if I'm buying cellphones for example for $500 and selling them for $600 holding the coins from that sale for a day could wipe out that $100 profit I made so thats why alot of sellers will immediately move bitcoins to dollars.

I also think its not necessarily true that we all have to use bitcoins and bitcoins only to support bitcoin. bitcoin solves a banking problem and banking headaches. i don't have chase telling me I can't do a wire over this much money or I can't send more than this many wires a month. With bitcoin I can send as much money to whomever I want and nobody hassles me about it. Just because i turn my profits into dollars doesn't mean bitcoin doesn't have a practical application for buisness and banking.

Bitcoin will not fade away. The sooner people learn about how fiat/national (i.e., USD, GBP, etc) currencies work, the more popular Bitcoin will become. The problem is you won't learn economics/monetary policy in the classroom, it's rather complicated to understand for the average person, and the central banks do a good job of keeping this information private and hard to obtain. Fiat currencies of the world are produced in privacy by central banks, for the primary benefit of those closely involved with the fiat producing money machine. Interestingly enough, these central banks are usually not considered part of their respective nation or government, but are considered "pseudo-government"; central banks are not national - they're private international entities/cartels. They're far from being transparent and you'd be naive to think that their primary goal is to benefit you and I, and the average Joe. They benefit each other, under the guise of "needing to stimulate and regulate the economy." They get very very cheap credit that they create themselves and dump them in a pyramid-scheme like fashion to the average joe at much higher rates of interest. When the economy is doing great, and the money consumption continues, i.e., workers are tirelessly working for this fiat money that they've created, basically as a modern slave, then central banks can pretend like they're needed to exist. Bitcoin is transparent, anyone can get involved in Bitcoin, and more importantly, there is no way to create money in Bitcoin in an unlimited fashion like fiat currencies, and this creates a level playing field for everybody. This is value, and the sooner people understand the difference between a group of people having the ability to create money when needed "to stimulate the economy", aka "bail out banks when they rip off the people" versus taking away the privilege of creating money from any and all human beings for all eternity, the sooner we can get to more equal opportunity for all.

Bitcoin shows us that it is indeed possible to have an alternative currency and people like myself finally have hope that this type of system can thrive, as it has proven to be. We have too much downward selling pressure from large miners, merchants, and payment processors and very little buying pressure - so this is why the price is falling. I think we'll eventually start seeing an equilibrium where the buying pressure will hold strong, at some price level and we may then start seeing it going up again. What's for sure is Bitcoin in relation to the dollar will not be a stable value, it will go up, it will go down. But what I know with deep certainty, unless the Bitcoin protocol is fatally flawed (i.e., security flaw, in which case all of modern cryptography and internet and NSA level security in your companies and banks will be flawed), that Bitcoin will never fade away and will be a part of our lives.

Bitcoin is equal opportunity for all. Fiat currencies is unequal opportunity for most - those involved in the fiat money production benefit, at the expense of those not involved. To become involved in the fiat money production is very difficult, i.e., you need at least 10-25$ million USD to become a member to receive cheap credit from central banks - so again not a very even level playing field. They get to make decisions first, be proactive, take the biggest pie, while everyone else ends up being the Turkey. Up until this point, we couldn't possibly imagine a different system, and perhaps we should be grateful for how far fiat currencies have taken us. But I think now is the time to look forward to the future for better alternatives, and Bitcoin may just very well be one. Open, transparent money like Bitcoin, limited and predictable in supply, and unable to be increased at the will of the few is the future we all need to look forward to if we want to cease being at the whims of the central operators, parasites of the world.

Hi Kufu:

I thought that I should chime in here, too, especially since your initial posting on this topic was in response to my June 2014 posting in the Stock Market thread.

In my referred-to post, I went on a bit of a tangent to describe a bit of my then investments into bitcoin. In sum, yes, I have been investing in BTC since the top of the last price bubble in November 2013 (when prices were around $1,200), and I have been investing incrementally and ongoingly ever since.

In about June 2014, I had predicted that the downward BTC price momentum had reversed and more or less I doubled down because I thought that BTC prices were on their way up from then on and that they would NOT likely see $500s again (in other words $600plus days were in bitcoin's future, in my thinking).

Thereafter, as we know, BTC prices dipped again, and I thought NO way in hell were they going to go below $360 (but they did), and so my ongoing bullish view may be my own short-fall to some extent, especially since I could have gotten a lot more coin if I had waited to employ my doubling down in October rather than in June... WTF???

Nonetheless, in sum, my optimism regarding the future upward potential of BTC has NOT faded, and I attribute the $275 downward price movement to a lot of manipulating whale influences, who are likely NOT going to be able to muster that much steam again in order to bring BTC prices down again... so I really doubt we will be seeing prices in the $350s or below again, even though anything seems possible in Bitcoinlandia.

Even though I remain frustrated by some of the various BTC price movements - especially when the price movement goes downward, i have continued to invest... but also sometimes running out of money when the price is low because of my bullish glasses.

Also, since my investment in BTC has become quite larger than in previous times, it takes quite a bit more funds to bring down my average cost per BTC (which is currently floating at $568).

I remain fairly confident that BTC prices are going to return upwardly bound and there is going to be at least one and possibly a few more substantial price bubbles (possibly in the 10x range). My BTC investment of course does NOT rely on the occurrence of any 10X price bubble or even an 2x price bubble.

Since I chose to invest in BTC, I have also maintained my investments diversified in other assets and understanding that I could lose all of the BTC investments.

Each of us has to chose his investment strategy based on a variety of factors including our own finances, view of future probabilities, world views, timeline, our risk adverseness and other factors.

If you read back through this thread, you will see that I am NOT a balls to the walls kind of investor, and I believe in a form of investment incrementalism (which also has been described as dollar cost averaging). Accordingly, if you are NOT sure whether now is a good time to invest in BTC, but you want to have some stake in the BTC game, then just allocate a portion of your money towards investing into BTC at various times and/or price points, including NOW and then make a plan for the coming months and/or years regarding how you intent to proceed.

Of course, since BTC remains a fairly volatile asset (and will likely continue to be volatile), you should consider various points (time and or price) of reviewing and potentially revising your BTC investment plan in various increments that are suitable to your own risk tolerance and strategies.

Polish company first in the world to sell shares for Bitcoins

Quote:A Polish company, InPay S.A., is the first in the world whose shares are available for purchase in public offering using the digital currency Bitcoin. The sale has just launched on the equity crowdfunding site Beesfund.com.

Equity crowdfunding is simply raising capital thanks to the online community. Unlike the reward-based crowdfunding, made popular by sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo or RocketHub, in equity crowdfunding people who are involved in financing the company receive personal shares.

whole article:
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/17557/press-r...-bitcoins/

Just completed my first Bitcoin trade using a local exchange in South Africa using a small amount of Rands.

Purchased a small amount of BTC just to test the workflows and now have some coins in my blockhain wallet.

The process getting into the bitcoin community took some time to ramp up.

There's definately a barrier to entry and this is not something the average person can do.

(10-24-2014 02:21 PM)Basement Dweller Wrote:  Just completed my first Bitcoin trade using a local exchange in South Africa using a small amount of Rands.

Purchased a small amount of BTC just to test the workflows and now have some coins in my blockhain wallet.

The process getting into the bitcoin community took some time to ramp up.

There's definately a barrier to entry and this is not something the average person can do.

Agreed that there are considerable barriers to entry in BTC landia; however, in the US, there are companies like Coinbase and Circle that are making entry into BTC easier for beginner users, and at least Coinbase has been recently spreading to other countries, starting in Europe (currently, expanding in 18 european countries).

I am fairly confident that various ease of use and ease of entry interfaces are going to improve BTC space, and I agree with you that at least ease of use and ease of entry are necessary for expanding adoption... There are some companies that have goals to establish various BTC interface systems that even grandma can use; however, those kinds of systems are far from being widespread or even very common in current times.

Many people are still "bit..what?" . It needs more widespread adoption by merchants, and entry requirements easier. More Bitcoin ATMs are appearing, we are on the right track.

Finally found an EXCELLENT youtube resource that explained bitcoins in very easy simple terms, this is by far the best educational resource I've found so far:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgo7FCC...4luP3JAgVw

Thanks to this James D'Angelo guy, I now know how to make paper wallets, brain wallets, sloppy wallets, double signatures, cold storage, escrow, trusts...all with bitcoin.

I've created a number of bitcoin hot wallets and have started moving things around, testing the workflows. My next step is to sell some bitcoins and see how that works.

Learning curve was steep and I'm a pretty good IT guy (work in software) but now that I'm 'in the know' I feel great and am really excited by this technology.

(10-27-2014 11:02 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 02:21 PM)Basement Dweller Wrote:  Just completed my first Bitcoin trade using a local exchange in South Africa using a small amount of Rands.

Purchased a small amount of BTC just to test the workflows and now have some coins in my blockhain wallet.

The process getting into the bitcoin community took some time to ramp up.

There's definately a barrier to entry and this is not something the average person can do.

Agreed that there are considerable barriers to entry in BTC landia; however, in the US, there are companies like Coinbase and Circle that are making entry into BTC easier for beginner users, and at least Coinbase has been recently spreading to other countries, starting in Europe (currently, expanding in 18 european countries).

I am fairly confident that various ease of use and ease of entry interfaces are going to improve BTC space, and I agree with you that at least ease of use and ease of entry are necessary for expanding adoption... There are some companies that have goals to establish various BTC interface systems that even grandma can use; however, those kinds of systems are far from being widespread or even very common in current times.

I think the biggest fear to those new to Bitcoin are fear and uncertainty in terms of how to do it, am I going to lose my money if I mess something up? I agree I love coinbase for newbies when friends express interest in buying some BTC.

I tell everyone to buy Bitcoins on coinbase your dealing with a reputable company and they make it easy. Once you have your coins then setup a paper wallet and try to send yourself $5 worth of BTC. If you screw it up which is pretty hard to do, you're still only out $5. Do a couple small transactions to get a hang of things and then it's easy from there.

I made my first purchase of Bitcoins using Bitlocal or craigslist I don't recall but I met a guy at a coffee shop and did it face to face. I was a bit worried about a more experienced person knowing I was a novice and taking advantage of me but all went well.

I agree though Coinbase makes it super easy. If you've used Paypal before Coinbase is very similar in the features such as send money, recieve money, history, etc. Actually the new Paypal layout which I hate actually looks almost identical to coinbase website and format.

Anyhow, I know when first dipping your toes into BTC it can be overwhelming but it's actually pretty simple technology to use I think the fact that money is involved just scares people like if I do something wrong will I lose my money? Thats why I'd suggest starting small to gain some confidence and figure out what your doing.

If anyone on this forum wants to get into BTC but is scared setup a paper wallet on your computer and pm me with the address and I wouldn't mind helping a few cats out and sending a very small amount of btc just so you can see how you receive them and maybe do a test transaction if you wanna try to send back to me.

Honestly my biggest hurdle with bitcoin is wrapping my head around converting the decimals into dollars in my head. I'm always having to use preev. On the few occasions I've actually amde a bitcoin purchase I have a hard time figuring out how much to send to a site to cover the product cost as well as shipping as stupid as that sounds.

(10-27-2014 11:02 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 02:21 PM)Basement Dweller Wrote:  Just completed my first Bitcoin trade using a local exchange in South Africa using a small amount of Rands.

Purchased a small amount of BTC just to test the workflows and now have some coins in my blockhain wallet.

The process getting into the bitcoin community took some time to ramp up.

There's definately a barrier to entry and this is not something the average person can do.

Agreed that there are considerable barriers to entry in BTC landia; however, in the US, there are companies like Coinbase and Circle that are making entry into BTC easier for beginner users, and at least Coinbase has been recently spreading to other countries, starting in Europe (currently, expanding in 18 european countries).

I am fairly confident that various ease of use and ease of entry interfaces are going to improve BTC space, and I agree with you that at least ease of use and ease of entry are necessary for expanding adoption... There are some companies that have goals to establish various BTC interface systems that even grandma can use; however, those kinds of systems are far from being widespread or even very common in current times.

I agree Coinbase has made buying bitcoins so much easier, in the past it was a real headache and unnerving to someone new. Do you happen to know anything about these Bitcoin cards which make easier to spend?

I know some company had essentially created like a bitcoin credit card essentially where you could load it and carry around coins. Cost was something like $200 so pretty expensive to have a wallet to carry around but I know a limited amount were made and all sold out even at that price. Obviously most people are not gonna drop $200 just to be able to carry around their btc with them but I tought it was a cool idea and something necessary to really bring BTC to the masses.

(10-27-2014 04:18 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(10-27-2014 11:02 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(10-24-2014 02:21 PM)Basement Dweller Wrote:  Just completed my first Bitcoin trade using a local exchange in South Africa using a small amount of Rands.

Purchased a small amount of BTC just to test the workflows and now have some coins in my blockhain wallet.

The process getting into the bitcoin community took some time to ramp up.

There's definately a barrier to entry and this is not something the average person can do.

Agreed that there are considerable barriers to entry in BTC landia; however, in the US, there are companies like Coinbase and Circle that are making entry into BTC easier for beginner users, and at least Coinbase has been recently spreading to other countries, starting in Europe (currently, expanding in 18 european countries).

I am fairly confident that various ease of use and ease of entry interfaces are going to improve BTC space, and I agree with you that at least ease of use and ease of entry are necessary for expanding adoption... There are some companies that have goals to establish various BTC interface systems that even grandma can use; however, those kinds of systems are far from being widespread or even very common in current times.

I agree Coinbase has made buying bitcoins so much easier, in the past it was a real headache and unnerving to someone new. Do you happen to know anything about these Bitcoin cards which make easier to spend?

I know some company had essentially created like a bitcoin credit card essentially where you could load it and carry around coins. Cost was something like $200 so pretty expensive to have a wallet to carry around but I know a limited amount were made and all sold out even at that price. Obviously most people are not gonna drop $200 just to be able to carry around their btc with them but I tought it was a cool idea and something necessary to really bring BTC to the masses.

I do NOT have experience with any kind of card or hardware wallet, but there is Trezor for example:

http://www.bitcointrezor.com/

Trezor is a form of hardware wallet that costs $120. Surely similar technology is going to come out and compete with Trezor and hopefully bring the prices down for these kinds of technological devices.

Some people have speculated that in the future, some of these companies making these kinds of devices may hook up with companies like Coinbase, Bitpay and/or Circle and thereafter maybe be included free with accounts holding a BTC balance above a certain amount... or something like that. There is a lot of potential in this space for developments and innovation, that's for sure.


There is also Gyft, which I also have NOT used.

http://www.gyft.com/

However, apparently gyft allows you to use bitcoin to make purchase through a variety of merchants and receive a 3% credit for those purchases.

There may be more needs for developments in this space, yet there is also some needs to create regulation clarity to remove payment disincentives. Personally, I have been disinclined to get too involved in spending bitcoins because I have considered the March 2014 IRS tax clarification to disincentivize the use of bitcoins for the regular purchasing of products or services (because for tax purposes, bitcoin is supposed to be treated as a commodity rather than as a currency - which really could be an accounting nightmare if a person were to incorporate multiple daily bitcoin purchase transactions into his daily activities).

I think the complexity with bitcoin is GETTING the stuff...setting up the wallets and all this is piss easy but dealing with exchanges and trading is a pain in the ass.

This would all change if we got paid our salaries in bitcoin.

Another problem is the danger in losing your private keys with no way to recover them...I can't imaging my mother handling this very well with all the scamsters out there.

There would definitely need to be more supporting services around bitcoin, face-to-face consultants, helping old ladies getting paid their pensions in bitcoins etc

(10-28-2014 01:04 AM)Basement Dweller Wrote:  I think the complexity with bitcoin is GETTING the stuff...setting up the wallets and all this is piss easy but dealing with exchanges and trading is a pain in the ass.

This would all change if we got paid our salaries in bitcoin.

Another problem is the danger in losing your private keys with no way to recover them...I can't imaging my mother handling this very well with all the scamsters out there.

There would definitely need to be more supporting services around bitcoin, face-to-face consultants, helping old ladies getting paid their pensions in bitcoins etc

Basement Dweller: (what a user name? ):

It seems that you are making several valid point, yet I would still characterize the bitcoin ease of use difficulties differently from how you have.

First of all, in the various bitcoin interfaces, there seems to be a whole hell-a-va-lot-of new concepts that can be learned, and surely, frequently, with any technical endeavor, for example, computers, we really do NOT need to know very much about the technical aspects, if the computer is already set up for us and if the computer is already containing a large number of user-friendly interfaces. However, there are a lot of people who get very frustrated with using a computer because they have had very frustrating experiences. NONETHELESS, most of us will have some knowledge that the use of computers has evolved to become increasingly easier for novice users in the past 20 years - and many novice users have NO real clue about any of the technical aspects regarding what makes their computer work, but they know how to get it to work for them and for their needs.

So, computers can be very technically difficult to comprehend, even though I lot of technically incompetent people have learned ways to get computers to work for them.

Bitcoin seems to still be at the stages of early computers and screwy and cumbersome user interfaces. Surely, there are some easy aspects to bitcion, once a person learns various aspects of a bitcoin related interface. However, yes, I would be worried about making one mistake and losing $10k or some other large amount that came about because I pushed the wrong button.

Maybe various centralized platforms (and maybe even some decentralized platforms) will establish some of the customer service resources about which you refer..? Maybe even establishing some kinds of member user groups and such that would be able to provide those kinds of services for little to no fee?

Regarding the various exchanges and trading, and that kind of stuff: Surely, there can be aspects of the exchanges and trading that are complicated; however, exchanges are merely one part of the whole bitcoin space, and certainly, one could become involved with bitcoin in various ways, and NOT even get involved with anything related to trading or exchanges. Also, I am sure that there are quite a few people who get involved with bitcoin (maybe through Coinbase or Bitpay), and they do NOT even get involved with establishing cold storage or a wallet and merely keep their purchased bitcoins on those exchanges in their hot wallets... or whatever they are called.

Anyone know what the deal with these sites that say turn 1 bitcoin into 4.5 bitcoin turn 10 bitcoin into 20 bitcoin, etc.

I came across MultiplyBitcoin.Com and Bitcoinbarrel.com and other sites they refer to as faucets. What exactly are these and how do they work? Is it a scam or what is the deal?

^ Sounds like a pyramid scheme

The trick of bitcoin would be to no longer need a "wallet", but an agent serving your needs & wants. A wallet is simply a digital version of your purse.

Money today is a passive method of exchange, you want something & you pay for it -- but what if money could *think* for itself or be used through agents & algoritms to serve you? Bitcoin technology could make it possible for you to walk into a barbershop & your smartphone pays automatically for the service. You could pay in bulk through a fingerprintscan for all things you'd plan to do that day, at breakfast. Bitcoin or digital cash could make us get rid of ALL payment technology & administration, because all cash desks, banks, creditcards would be replaced by agents & algoritms. That would be only the start.

Think about it: why do we have dozens of cards, coupons, memberships, cash & bank accounts? All these things serve a similar function in our economic system: the current payment systems are simply one method of transferring value to another, it need not be final, it can be reimagined and bettered in many ways. And it will, if not bitcoin, then something else, but similar will do this.

Think of all M2M (machine-to-machine) applications that would be able to finetune suboptimal situations? If you park your car at a good spot, you could set up a price for the spot at which you'd be prepared to leave for someone who's prepared to pay more for that spot. Your car could communicate with other cars & be paid virtual cash instantly. Or what about traffic jams? Or toll roads? Your car could pay by itself to respectively get out quickly or pay for service.

All passive things, like a fridge or a tv, could become active, because they'd be agentic; every thing could be used by anyone & every thing could accept digital cash. You would fuse the *wallet* with the machine itself.

The whole thing of bitcoin is that money can become its own actor.

Whoa! FBI just seized all big TOR/Deep Web dark market places.

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/feds-seize-silk-road-2/

It appears SilkRoad 2.0 was managed by a guy who's either extraordinarily dumb, sloppy and/or lazy. Not only did he register the darknet server under his OWN name & email, he also tried to change BTC for money on CoinBase, which is known for strict compliance to US KYC/AML laws. I rarely say so, but what an idiot. What a complete idiot.

Getting busted is one thing, but just think of all the criminals who will come after him because they lost money because of this.

Re bitcoin, last dark net drug bust (Silk Road original) the price collapsed for a day, before going up sharply & starting a rally.