meanwhile the network effect is stronger than ever...

So Roosh has Bitcoin now and doesn't grace our thread with his presence?

(03-01-2014 06:51 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  So Roosh has Bitcoin now and doesn't grace our thread with his presence?

He secretly reads the thread for investment strategies (of what NOT to do)...

Lol ^ yup he's a bag holder for sure

Do you know what I would like to see Return Of Kings to do?

Encourage writers to create their bitcoin wallets and set their bitcoin addresses in the "About the Author" profile section. i.e "Tip The Author: [enter bitcoin address here]". This way those readers who enjoy the post can tip some money to the writer in a quick and easy way.

(02-14-2014 08:18 AM)Onto Wrote:  I can definitely see Bitcoin becoming a payment system in the future, but it's backing doesn't come from the ability to tax citizens and businesses so I don't think it can ever be a real currency. I could certainly be wrong about that though.

There's no reason to believe that a government-backed cryptocurrency would not be subject to taxation, though bitcoin itself will probably never be.

Onto Wrote:Fiat Currency: Founded on a Nation of Laws by its citizens with the abilitly to make it's citizens subscribe to and adhere to those laws. Tax reciepts.

The important physical characteristics of currency is that it must have discrete, recognizable units and be easy to exchange for goods and services. The next important thing is for people to actually agree to use the currency and accept it as money. Really the only thing that distinguishes a "fiat" currency is that it was originally established by a government and has no standard exchange to anything tangible(like gold). It's not strictly necessary that the government continue to support the fiat currency once it has been established (although practically speaking it usually matters a lot). The ultimate value of a currency is a function of supply and demand. Demand is stimulated by the factors I describe (physical utility and widespread acceptance as medium of exchange). Supply depends on the specific currency.

USD's physical characteristics are commonly known. USD can be traded electronically through use of a trusted 3rd party to handle the transaction. People agree to recognize USD and accept it as a medium of exchange because it's backed by the entire US Economy and every other economy in the world that trades in USD. Demand for USD is high because you can spend USD on a lot of important goods and services. Supply of USD is regulated (sort of) by the federal reserve bank.

Quote:Bitcoin: ? The only foundation appears to be the desire for someone else to see it also as valuable. I don't see how the foundation of many computer systems networked together makes it's worth $14+ billion dollars.

Bitcoin's essential value lies in its electronic nature. It's possible to trade bitcoins electronically and semi-anonymously. The bitcoin network records all transactionsbut there's nothing in the network actually connecting a particular public key to an individual person. Bitcoin's cryptocurrency design is unlike any other electronic currency in that it does not require mutual trust in a 3rd party. Other types of electronic currency, such as World of Warcraft gold, require trust in a 3rd party. In order to do electronic transactions with fiat currency, you have to trust a 3rd party as well (VISA, Mastercard, Paypal, or a bank(ACH, wire transfer, etc.)).

The primary purpose of cryptocurrency is to replace that middle-man for electronic transactions with an automated, decentralized peer-to-peer system for authenticating transactions.

Bitcoin supply comes from "mining" (computational discovery of new blocks). Bitcoin demand is a combination of people who desire those physical attributes described above, and speculative demand. In order to become a mainstream currency, bitcoin will have to accommodate mainstream demand, and I don't believe it will succeed. This is because the supply of bitcoin will run out before even a fraction of the mainstream demand for currency is met.

There can only ever be 21 million BTC (source) and over half of them have been found already (source).

The question is: how do you get those 21 million BTC to be accepted for transactions like paying salaries, buying groceries, houses, automobiles, or paying electric bills without causing the USD exchange rate to become prohibitively high? It seems impossible to me. (Using fractional coins is not an answer.)

(02-16-2014 05:25 PM)Grit Wrote:  Spoken like a fascist.

For the readers of Rooshv, go read Satoshi Nakamoto's essay. Anyone who tries to explain or question the value of Bitcoin proves their ignorance to the concepts contained in the essay. You should immediately doubt the credibility of anyone who tries to give you BTC advice without having read the essay. If you haven't read it yet and are in this thread, read the essay.

[...]

Read the essay already!

Satoshi's essay covers the theoretical principles involved in creating a viable peer-tp-peer crypocurrency, but says little to nothing about whether any specific cryptocurrency implementation will actually be successful.

The 21 million coin limit (specific to bitcoin) is not described in the paper, for example, nor are any of the potentially negative consequences of a limited supply explored.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky...-it-helps/

Excellent article. I have been amazed by the quality of recent articles although there have been several bad ones filled with misinformation and prejudice out there. This is the funniest http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28...ref=topbar , comment from reddit: "Bitcoin is anti-woman because there are no women in Bitcoin. Women should stay away from Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is anti-women. Bitcoin is anti-woman because because there are no women in Bitcoin."


It is interesting that Bitcoin is not actually anonymous, but pseudo-anonymous: you don't have to necessarily link your personal information to your addresses but the transactions stay public forever. Due to blockchain, all transactions are entirely transparent. This means, that first time in the history we could have 100 % money transparency in money exchange -- we could demand 100 % transparency in our government and banks. Something which would make corruption way less possible. Add to that smartcontracts, contracts, which do not require trust in authority but trust in the algorithm. Bitcoin is a great thing for Westerners, but it can be a holy savor for developing countries. All leftist hippies should be into Bitcoin... but no.

http://honestnode.com/bitcoin-fair-value...ssessment/

Interesting article on fair value assessment of Bitcoin

TLDR;

Quote: Our analysis determines that one bitcoin must be worth $27,381 in order to support 10% of common medium-of-exchange economic activity, plus well under 10% of existing common store-of-value demand. Whether bitcoin will achieve on the order of 10% market-share for those activities is another analysis entirely; one that is far more subjective, and requires a framework for evaluating both micro and macro economic dynamics, viral technology adoption, network effects, and other domains that are beyond the scope of our analysis.

That said, the following conclusions can be drawn from our analysis above:

1) If bitcoin achieves close to 10% market-share of the above uses, it is undervalued by more than an order of magnitude today.

2) The bitcoin market is either inefficient, or is assigning a probability of less than 5% for bitcoin to achieve the success-scenarios outlined herein.

Quote:The majority of the value that is priced in to bitcoin is speculation on its future uses. It may be incorrect to think bitcoin would be a good remittance tool. We may be incorrect to think that bitcoin could be useful for an open real-time gross settlement system. We may be incorrect to think that bitcoin can be used as a low-cost contract enforcement platform. We may be incorrect that bitcoin could be used as a globally tracked asset ledger. We may be wrong that autonomous agents would be useful. Or we could be right about one of those things... and that's all it takes to justify the value.

had to share this comment from a reddit user. mostly reflects my sentiments when asked about the justification of Bitcoin's value

(03-02-2014 02:49 PM)brg444 Wrote:  http://honestnode.com/bitcoin-fair-value...ssessment/

Interesting article on fair value assessment of Bitcoin

That is an excellent article. However I do spot one limitation they don't draw attention to.

Quote:Whether bitcoin will achieve on the order of 10% market-share for those activities is another analysis entirely; one that is far more subjective, and requires a framework for evaluating both micro and macro economic dynamics, viral technology adoption, network effects, and other domains that are beyond the scope of our analysis.

Specifically, competing cryptocurrencies (such as Litecoin) could steal its market share.

(03-02-2014 06:15 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

(03-02-2014 02:49 PM)brg444 Wrote:  http://honestnode.com/bitcoin-fair-value...ssessment/

Interesting article on fair value assessment of Bitcoin

That is an excellent article. However I do spot one limitation they don't draw attention to.

Quote:Whether bitcoin will achieve on the order of 10% market-share for those activities is another analysis entirely; one that is far more subjective, and requires a framework for evaluating both micro and macro economic dynamics, viral technology adoption, network effects, and other domains that are beyond the scope of our analysis.

Specifically, competing cryptocurrencies (such as Litecoin) could steal its market share.

Yeah... there is quite a bit of speculation regarding the future of bitcoin or the extent to which any of the crypto-currencies will take away some of values and market share.

Accordingly, food for thought that the article pointed out several theoretical areas in which bitcoin and/or other crypto-currencies could be able to take over market share - given that currently bitcoin has between 7-8 billion market cap, and the article projects $57Billion.... According to the article, Bitcoin seems to have a decent chance to increase in value by more than 70 times its present day value... and probably 100 times is NOT out of the question.

From the article:

Quote: Final Tally

When we add our estimated market capitalization of bitcoin if it captures 10% of common medium-of-exchange uses to our estimate if it captures up to 10% of store-of-value uses, we arrive at a total market-cap of ~$574.6B.

Table 7. Bitcoin Money Supply Summary 7 Domain Domain Penetration Supply Required

Remittance Market 10% $6.55B
Black Market Transactions 10% $25.05B
M2 of "Medium" Size Country 1 Country $27.4B
Global eCommerce 10% $35.61
Investment Gold 10% $270B
HNW "Offshore" Holdings 1% $210B
Total: $574.61B

At full-issuance of 21,000,000 bitcoins, each bitcoin's fair-value would therefore be $27,381.

(03-02-2014 07:03 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Accordingly, food for thought that the article pointed out several theoretical areas in which bitcoin and/or other crypto-currencies could be able to take over market share - given that currently bitcoin has between 7-8 billion market cap, and the article projects $57Billion.... According to the article, Bitcoin seems to have a decent chance to increase in value by more than 70 times its present day value... and probably 100 times is NOT out of the question.

For what it's worth, my prediction is that bitcoin will never reach anywhere near 10% market share for the areas mentioned in the article, because the value of bitcoin would have to increase by so much. Over time this will discourage adoption. New players, faced with the prospect of exchanging bitcoin at highly unfavorable rates will simply stick with USD via Paypal and such.

I think that to be a viable currency in the long run, the supply of bitcoin needs to keep pace with its increasing market share.

(03-02-2014 08:35 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

(03-02-2014 07:03 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Accordingly, food for thought that the article pointed out several theoretical areas in which bitcoin and/or other crypto-currencies could be able to take over market share - given that currently bitcoin has between 7-8 billion market cap, and the article projects $57Billion.... According to the article, Bitcoin seems to have a decent chance to increase in value by more than 70 times its present day value... and probably 100 times is NOT out of the question.

For what it's worth, my prediction is that bitcoin will never reach anywhere near 10% market share for the areas mentioned in the article, because the value of bitcoin would have to increase by so much. Over time this will discourage adoption. New players, faced with the prospect of exchanging bitcoin at highly unfavorable rates will simply stick with USD via Paypal and such.

I think that to be a viable currency in the long run, the supply of bitcoin needs to keep pace with its increasing market share.

Yes, each of us is speculating to certain degree based on our knowledge of the world, assumptions and expectations.... ... some of us will be closer and others of us will be further from the final outcome of how far bitcoin is going to go... whether that be 6 days from now, 6 months, 6 years or 60 years.


I would like to point out that it seems an erroneous conception to get caught too much up in the price of bitcoin and the volatility when making various transactions. Surely, these matters are going to evolve and likely the volatility will lessen to a large extent. Also, at some point we may be dealing in satoshis rather than in bitcoins or in milibits.

Currently, there are a lot of technical difficulties, and certainly grandma cannot really use this app without considerable coaching. Additionally, currently one of the biggest costs and impediments related to bitcoin concerns converting back and forth to and from fiat. These conversion systems will likely become more seamless and provide options to convert directly to fiat or to stay in bitcoin... according to the wishes of the user - accordingly, there will likely be choices for those who may NOT want to experience the volatility of the relative value of bitcoin.

In any event, we are truly in our infancy stages when it comes to bitcoin and the infrastructure that may be built around it.... likely, the facebook of bitcoin has NOT yet emerged onto the scene, and I believe the value in the cited article is NOT really in the specifics of what it is describing to be the capabilities of bitcoin but instead the value is that it has outlined quite a few uses for bitcoin in which bitcoin could be able to be put to work and accordingly to increase in price.

(03-02-2014 08:35 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

(03-02-2014 07:03 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Accordingly, food for thought that the article pointed out several theoretical areas in which bitcoin and/or other crypto-currencies could be able to take over market share - given that currently bitcoin has between 7-8 billion market cap, and the article projects $57Billion.... According to the article, Bitcoin seems to have a decent chance to increase in value by more than 70 times its present day value... and probably 100 times is NOT out of the question.

For what it's worth, my prediction is that bitcoin will never reach anywhere near 10% market share for the areas mentioned in the article, because the value of bitcoin would have to increase by so much. Over time this will discourage adoption. New players, faced with the prospect of exchanging bitcoin at highly unfavorable rates will simply stick with USD via Paypal and such.

I think that to be a viable currency in the long run, the supply of bitcoin needs to keep pace with its increasing market share.

But what if the new player can buy good or services at a 5% discount using Bitcoin ?

Do I understand correctly that your concern is a value of, for example, 10 000$/BTC will discourage adoption ? This is simply a unit denomination problem. I can still purchase 1 mBTC for 10 $

Sorry for the wall of text but this is a great read and definitely the most detailed and best speculation on what happened at Gox

Quote:TL/DR: A young man had a secret. To keep it hidden, he kept digging until the hole was a billion dollars deep. This is a speculative tale of a great bitcoin theft from MtGox in 2011 and the efforts that this man undertook to fix it. The tale explains the bitcoin bear market of 2011, the explosive rally of 2013, delayed fiat withdrawals, malled transactions, and a bot named Willy.

“By the time you realize that real life has begun, you are already three moves in.”—Author unknown

It was June 19, 2011. Mark, a 26 year-old young man—a boy really—was ecstatic. He had recently purchased MtGox—a small, online exchange for trading virtual tokens—and business was booming. These virtual tokens were called bitcoins and Mark loved them.

Bitcoins were an obscure curiosity: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allowed users to store and exchange credits with any other user in the world, nearly instantly, and without the assistance of a third-party or the permission of an authority. All that was needed was a 78-digit secret number—a key if you will.

In order for his customers to withdraw their bitcoins over the internet, MtGox stored some of these keys on its online server. The remaining keys were stored on USB drives and backed up on paper to prevent theft should the server be compromised.

But theft was hardly a concern. In October of 2010, bitcoins were trading for $0.10 and the half a million bitcoins held by MtGox was worth only $50,000. But still Mark took precautions, diligently moving bitcoins to offline storage and leaving only what was necessary for customer withdrawals online. He truly wanted both his business and bitcoin to succeed.

By April, the bitcoin price had risen to $1 and by June it had exploded to $30. Between June 1 and June 15, an additional one million bitcoins were sent to MtGox and immediately sold, crashing the price back to $10. It was a hectic time, with hundreds of customers needing help, visits from the FBI related to the Silk Road black market, and stress related to the recent market crash. Young Mark was becoming a victim of his own success: there simply wasn’t enough time to get everything done. On this very day in June 2011, the keys to the recently-deposited 1,000,000 BTC were still sitting on his server.

Later this day, a group of hackers gained access to MtGox servers and executed fake trades that the world could see, driving the nominal price of bitcoin near $0. Mark was frantic. He quickly regained control of the servers and learned the dark truth: the million bitcoins that had recently flooded in earlier that month were gone. Mark admitted publically to the hack, rewound the false trades, but kept the truth of the missing coins a secret.
How could this 26-year old explain to his customers that he had lost their bitcoins? And if the world found out, would this kill the thing he loved so dearly? Would he go to jail? Or worse yet, would someone kill him? Mark decided that he would do what he thought was right: he would slowly earn back the lost bitcoin with MtGox trading fee profits and eventually make his customers whole again. He still had over 500,000 BTC left—he moved 424242.42424242 BTC between bitcoin addresses and convinced the community that MtGox was solvent. As long as withdrawals didn’t exceed deposits over a long period of time, no one would ever find out the truth. Or so he thought.

Meanwhile, the bitcoin thieves slowly mixed their coins with other coins, obfuscating the chain of ownership, and then re-selling these coins on MtGox using sock-puppet accounts. Mark tried to stop them, but there was no way he could know for sure which accounts were fraudulent—he even accused innocent people of bitcoin laundering. The constant selling of these stolen bitcoins drove the price down to $2 in November 2011. Mark faithfully used all of the MtGox profits to purchase coins back during this decline. But he would never use customer funds—that was a line he swore not to cross.

The selling of these stolen bitcoins continued at a diminished rate over 2012, and Mark continually purchased coins using the MtGox trading fees. The bitcoin economy was growing and new exchanges were opening up across the world. His bitcoin reserves weren’t building fast enough but the price of bitcoin kept rising (along with the dollar value of the missing bitcoins). He was worried that other exchanges would suck coins out of Gox and reveal his secret. He decided he needed to take decisive action: for the first time, he used customer funds to purchase real bitcoins. These large purchases by Mark further increased demand and ignited the great rally of spring 2013 when the bitcoin price shot from $20 to $266. Mark had reduced his liability in bitcoins, but in dollar terms the coins that were still missing were worth more than ever before.

On May 15, 2013 the US Department of Homeland Security seized millions of dollars from the MtGox Dwolla bank account. MtGox dollar reserves were already depleted at this point, and with the recent seizure, Mark could no longer make good on customer withdrawals in US dollars.

Under the guise of “banking problems,” MtGox slowed US dollar withdrawals to a trickle in the summer of 2013. Customers became increasingly worried and began to bid up the price of bitcoin on MtGox, as this was the only way to escape with their funds. MtGox had little fiat and very little bitcoins, but it learned one thing: as the price differential between Gox and BitStamp grew, the outwards flow of bitcoin slowed dramatically.
And so Willy was born. Willy was a bot, discovered by Wall Observers from bitcointalk.org, who would consistently purchased bitcoins at regular intervals between November 2013 and February 2014. Evidence that Willy belonged to Mark was revealed when both web and API trading at Gox was disabled for a brief period of time, exposing Willy as the only one left buying.

Willy served two purposes: he drove the price of bitcoin on the MtGox exchange high, thereby slowing and sometimes reversing the outward flow of real BTC, and he reduced the number of GoxBTC held by clients. Of course, this meant that Willy eventually became the owner of a huge number of GoxBTC (that were of course no longer backed by real BTC).

By December, the situation at MtGox was grim. In a desperate attempt to attract more funds, Mark offered reduced trading fees under the guise of celebrating their 1,000,000th customer. This partially worked, but Mark knew it was too late. If MtGox collapsed, it must appear that he didn’t know about the theft until now—for it was better to appear incompetent than criminal.

It was time to cover his tracks.

He purposely mixed immature coins into bitcoin withdrawals to delay the outward flow of coins, and later began malling his own transactions. He added the Gox malleability weakness not as a bug, but as a feature, so that it would seem plausible that outsiders had recently stolen the coins without his awareness. No coins were actually lost to malleability.

The MtGox coin supply dwindled to 2,000 BTC and on February 7, 2014. He had no choice but to disable bitcoin withdrawals. The end was near.

The problem Mark faced was that his customers had $150,000,000 credited to their accounts, yet the MtGox bank account only contained $38,000,000. He could blame the missing bitcoins on transaction malleability, but how could he explain where the fiat money went?

He shifted Willy into reverse and cranked the throttle. Willy relentlessly dumped bitcoins into the open bids. The price fell further and further, eventually dropping well below the BitStamp price. But still not enough people were buying! He needed his customers to buy the GoxBTC. Willy kept dumping coins until finally the price dropped below $100. MtGox even acquired new USD bank wires from customers looking to purchase the cheap coins. By this time, the majority of Gox customers had converted their dollars into bitcoins.

On February 28, 2014, Mt Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo, reporting 6.5 billion yen in liabilities, 3.8 billion yen in assets, and 750,000 of customer bitcoins missing. Willy had failed to completely close the fiat solvency gap and Mark finally admitted to having lost the coins.

Now we watch the rest of the story unfold. A story of how an oversight during a hectic period, an untimely theft, and an attempt to cover it up, lead to the greatest loss in the history of bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=497289.0

Ok, I am in.

Just downloaded the s/w and created my wallet. Took a long time to download all the transactions and build the d/b but I am going to be buying my first bitcoins in the next week.

Andreas hits the nail on the head yet again with this one.

http://antonopoulos.com/2014/03/02/failu...an-option/

(03-02-2014 08:57 PM)brg444 Wrote:  Do I understand correctly that your concern is a value of, for example, 10 000$/BTC will discourage adoption ? This is simply a unit denomination problem. I can still purchase 1 mBTC for 10 $

The concern is not denominations the concern is deflation-- the value of 2014 BTC relative to the value of 2020 BTC, etc.

(03-02-2014 10:09 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

(03-02-2014 08:57 PM)brg444 Wrote:  Do I understand correctly that your concern is a value of, for example, 10 000$/BTC will discourage adoption ? This is simply a unit denomination problem. I can still purchase 1 mBTC for 10 $

The concern is not denominations the concern is deflation-- the value of 2014 BTC relative to the value of 2020 BTC, etc.

Quote:New players, faced with the prospect of exchanging bitcoin at highly unfavorable rates will simply stick with USD via Paypal and such

I don't understand the "unfavorable rates" part

Quote:I don't understand the "unfavorable rates" part

Might have been a poor choice of words. Basically, money is supposed to represent wealth for the purposes of exchange. When the value of the money changes dramatically over the course of a few years, it's not really a good currency. What real economic reason is there for a mop sold in 2014 to be worth 40x what it's worth in 2020? There isn't one.

(03-02-2014 11:16 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

Quote:I don't understand the "unfavorable rates" part

Might have been a poor choice of words. Basically, money is supposed to represent wealth for the purposes of exchange. When the value of the money changes dramatically over the course of a few years, it's not really a good currency. What real economic reason is there for a mop sold in 2014 to be worth 40x what it's worth in 2020? There isn't one.

The nascient nature of Bitcoin creates these huge fluctuations in value. Once Bitcoin settles (don't ask me when) one should expect the deflation rate to diminish on a year-to-year basis

Anyone got burned on Gox?

Could have been a very cheap lesson for people holding on BTC-e

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments...o_bitcoin/

(03-02-2014 11:39 PM)brg444 Wrote:  

(03-02-2014 11:16 PM)Blaster Wrote:  

Quote:I don't understand the "unfavorable rates" part

Might have been a poor choice of words. Basically, money is supposed to represent wealth for the purposes of exchange. When the value of the money changes dramatically over the course of a few years, it's not really a good currency. What real economic reason is there for a mop sold in 2014 to be worth 40x what it's worth in 2020? There isn't one.

The nascient nature of Bitcoin creates these huge fluctuations in value. Once Bitcoin settles (don't ask me when) one should expect the deflation rate to diminish on a year-to-year basis

I may have posted on this deflationary topic a few times, and in recent weeks, I have been kind of getting over my concerns about bitcoin deflation.

Part of the reason for my getting over it is that in the short term, we are likely to experience considerable appreciation in Bitcoin price and value. Even 5-10 years from now, bitcoin may continue to appreciate in value in a deflationary way with annual averages greater than 15%.

In that regard, people will recognize bitcoin to serve as a store of value.

However, I have a hard time believing that bitcoin will be able to survive in such a way on its own and as the only crypto currency that takes on these roles, and therefore, we are likely to get competition from other crypto currencies and also maybe from currencies and money exchangers.

We really cannot predict with much certainty how the role of bitcoin is going to play out in our financial system as compared with other asset classes. Accordingly, it has become my belief that we should just accept bitcoin as part of the new landscape and watch how bitcoin plays out within that landscape.

There are other asset classes (even some stocks) that have experienced exponential growth curves during their adoptive years, and bitcoin may experience a similar fate....

In sum, it is my current thinking that we should see how bitcoin plays out, rather than having concerns that the deflationary aspects of bitcoin is going to be a major problem in the whole scheme of things.

(03-03-2014 01:16 AM)pants Wrote:  Anyone got burned on Gox?

Could have been a very cheap lesson for people holding on BTC-e

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments...o_bitcoin/

No.. But my friend got $1.5k randomly in his bank account from a(n?) Swedish exchange. Without reason. That exchange also had problem since they went overloaded and it was a one man business.

Should have bought Auroracoin when I wrote about it here a few days ago, then it was 0.04 and now 0.09