Bitcoin discussion and news

[camouflage]

ffs, Amir Taaki is a nob. Fairplay he did setup britcoin.co.uk but he's still a nob.

Talk of Black Friday and Pump-an-Dump schemes should be borne in mind in this game, frankly I reckon it's better to be an investor than a speculator, play the long game and not this...

Still, fair-play to ya if you cash out an double-down an cash out again and all that, not for me though, boat's too small to jump up an down on without risking a splash in my opinion. Not playing chicken with irrational exuberance here. Bubbles-and-pops will continue but the market's here stay an there'll only ever be 21 million of em.

Still, I'd have thunk again if I'd had to get significantly in at todays prices. All the speculation is driving development etcetera though, so that's a good thing. The transition from speculator commodity play-thing to actual medium of exchange continues. Give it another year for all that, and after 2013 bitcoin will be recognized Solid even though Mises was a cock.

 

[Belushi]

I'd never heard of this today so have done a bit of reading up - its a classic bubble isnt it? I'm sure everyone who got in early enough has done well but I suspect once people lke me have heard of it its due to pop very soon.

 

[xenon]

Stupid questions maybe but anyway.

When you buy a Bitcoin with GBP. Who's coin do you get, is it a random coin owner or does the trade software match you with a particular party, selling at a specific price?

So for instance, today according to Britcoin, 1 BTC = £13 GBP. How does the trade site select a coin owner. I mean, it's not really like going to Natwest to exchange GBP for Dollas. Wherein, Natwest have my Sterling and I have the greenbacks. Who's the Natwest in the BTC exchange, given it's P2P?

 

[joustmaster]

Stupid questions maybe but anyway.

When you buy a Bitcoin with GBP. Who's coin do you get, is it a random coin owner or does the trade software match you with a particular party, selling at a specific price?

So for instance, today according to Britcoin, 1 BTC = £13 GBP. How does the trade site select a coin owner. I mean, it's not really like going to Natwest to exchange GBP for Dollas. Wherein, Natwest have my Sterling and I have the greenbacks. Who's the Natwest in the BTC exchange, given it's P2P?

some one else who wants to sell their coin..

you get to buy or sell at any exchange rate you want. if anyone will accept that is another matter

 

[twentythreedom]

What happens when China decides to dedicate swathes of supercomputers to generate BitCoins - and how could anyone possibly know until the market is destroyed?

Good question, surely?

 

[twentythreedom]

even if I switch it off then switch it on again, it still don't work. Is bruk

 

[grit]

Good question, surely?

The difficulty required increases the more power that is introduced to balance it out, so the effect is essentially nothing

 

[paolo]

The transition from speculator commodity play-thing to actual medium of exchange continues

Does it? I looked at a list of retailers supposedly taking Bitcoins.

The first five I looked at didn't take Bitcoins. Maybe they did once, but they don't now.

There's big credibility issue here. People saying you can buy cars, buy PCs, and yet it turns out be bollocks that people just happily repeat because they're caught in the hype. A writer in the Guardian recently repeated these myths.

At the end of the day there is no consumer or business demand for an alternative currency, never mind a massively unstable one.

Does the average consumer keep a Yen account just in case they might want to buy something from Japan? Of course they don't.

And yet, there's this idea that Bitcoin will become a pervasive currency and succeed - as a credible alternative currency - where stable currencies have failed.

People in Euro countries will keep Euros. Americans will keep USD. etc etc.

By 2014, Bitcoin will be used by almost the same number of people as it is today - pretty much fuck all.

 

[xenon]

Thanks Joustmaster. So that £13 Britcoin quoted yesterday. Is that just there service? As in, is that what they themselves charge per coin, selling the coins they own? So I'd need shop around different sites to find a better price.

It seems to me, what's going to keep this only a minimally useful currency is the instability of the exchange rate. Til peple can feel confident about exchanging RL currency for BTC, back and forth, to buy tangeble goods. It's only gonna be a nietche interest. I'd want to be able to rely on a reasonably steady exchange rate before selling or buying anything other than trivial commodities. People are used to changing money for foreign currency. They don't want necesarily to become Forex traders though.

 

[joustmaster]

Thanks Joustmaster. So that £13 Britcoin quoted yesterday. Is that just there service? As in, is that what they themselves charge per coin, selling the coins they own? So I'd need shop around different sites to find a better price.

It seems to me, what's going to keep this only a minimally useful currency is the instability of the exchange rate. Til peple can feel confident about exchanging RL currency for BTC, back and forth, to buy tangeble goods. It's only gonna be a nietche interest. I'd want to be able to rely on a reasonably steady exchange rate before selling or buying anything other than trivial commodities. People are used to changing money for foreign currency. They don't want necesarily to become Forex traders though.

No. The person who owns britcoin doesn't buy or sell. You trade with other people on the site. When you put in the the amount you want, it automatically gives you the best price that is available with the people currently wanting to trade. That offer you had of 13 is in an editable text box. you can change it to any number you want, and then it will be on the order books, for people to accept or not..

 

[xenon]

Ta. I'll have a proper look later. Gave up the mining idea. Bog standard GPU, couldn't get the mining pool software to work and I don't want to leave my PC on 24/7.

The exchange rate still has to settle to be of use to most people though and I'm still suspicious of the currency price collapsing.

 

[joustmaster]

Ta. I'll have a proper look later. Gave up the mining idea. Bog standard GPU, couldn't get the mining pool software to work and I don't want to leave my PC on 24/7.

The exchange rate still has to settle to be of use to most people though and I'm still suspicious of the currency price collapsing.

It has been all over the place. Fluctuating 10 points in a day some times.

 

[grit]

Oh well there goes my idea for my next personal project its already done. Spend bitcoins on amazon http://spendbitcoins.com/

 

[camouflage]

Does it? I looked at a list of retailers supposedly taking Bitcoins.

The first five I looked at didn't take Bitcoins. Maybe they did once, but they don't now.

There's big credibility issue here. People saying you can buy cars, buy PCs, and yet it turns out be bollocks that people just happily repeat because they're caught in the hype. A writer in the Guardian recently repeated these myths.

At the end of the day there is no consumer or business demand for an alternative currency, never mind a massively unstable one.

Does the average consumer keep a Yen account just in case they might want to buy something from Japan? Of course they don't.

And yet, there's this idea that Bitcoin will become a pervasive currency and succeed - as a credible alternative currency - where stable currencies have failed.

People in Euro countries will keep Euros. Americans will keep USD. etc etc.

By 2014, Bitcoin will be used by almost the same number of people as it is today - pretty much fuck all.

You might be right about it not taking off in the shops etc, still holds well as a store of value though. Maybe it will just end up as a form of emailable-gold. Slap down a bar of gold on the till at Sainsburies an see where it gets ya, not worthless though is it.

 

[grit]

You might be right about it not taking off in the shops etc, still holds well as a store of value though. Maybe it will just end up as a form of emailable-gold. Slap down a bar of gold on the till at Sainsburies an see where it gets ya, not worthless though is it.

Exactly, its not attempting to replace existing currencies its to compliment them in the context of the internet.

 

[camouflage]

Wikileaks now accepts btc donations apparently: https://twitter.com/#!/wikileaks/status/80774521350668288

 

[spacemonkey]

Exactly, its not attempting to replace existing currencies its to compliment them in the context of the internet.

I've already found bitcoins very useful when sending my mate in Canada some money. Has anyone ever tried doing an international bank transfer?? Nightmare. With bitcoins it was about as easy as sending an e-mail.

Currency exchanges are absolutely vital at the moment though. I think they are the weak link in the system at the moment.

 

[camouflage]

Exactly, its not attempting to replace existing currencies its to compliment them in the context of the internet.

Agreed.

Besides, if my Python was up to scratch for instance (still learning) and someone offered me bitcoin to do a bit of coding for them I would accept that, I know lots of people that would be happy to accept bitcoin for bits of screen-work or other stuff like that.

Among goldbugs and libertards and reptilaphobes of the David Ike variety people tend to shriek with outrage at how the banks "make money out of nothing", which to my mind is silly. Banks make money out of the same nothing that entrepreneurs and business managers get their ideas from. The problem isn't that the money "comes from nowhere" (it comes from future plans and obligations of future value creation). The problem is that the side effect of our current money creation process is exponential debt, which is unsustainable. There are drawbacks with current debt-based money system, and there are draw-backs with the gold-fetishists idea of things too. Bitcoin is a good additional tool for the exchange and storage of wealth but I don't think it needs to replace fiat.

Speaking of which, I don't think there's anything wrong with 'fiat' either, as many goldbugs would have us beleive, in principal a state answerable to its population saying "This little portrait of some historical figure is acceptable to pay taxes with" is completely reasonable. There are many forms of money and many forms of wealth, the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. The monopoly-power of bankers can certainly do with being undermined, keep everyone from getting too piss-takey, and what's wrong with that?

Stay diverse.

 

[magneze]

Fraudulent activity makes Bitcoins worthless. Oops.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/19/bitcoin_values_collapse_again/

 

[kabbes]

I am shocked that such a thing might happen.

 

[grit]

Funnily enough it was a security breach at the auditors who had a copy of the mtgox database. All transactions post the dump are being rolled back.

 

[xenon]

MTGox was suffering a DoS attack, last Wednesday or Thursday too. At least according to Twitter feed at the main Bitcoin site.

 

[kabbes]

How marvellous to have a currency based on a system any old mental can hack into and fuck up.

 

[grit]

MTGox was suffering a DoS attack, last Wednesday or Thursday too. At least according to Twitter feed at the main Bitcoin site.

Yeah its becoming a viable target for professional crims.

 

[grit]

How marvellous to have a currency based on a system any old mental can hack into and fuck up.

You will see stability restored in bitcoin far far faster than in anywhere else (example stock exchange servers crashing)

The fact its decentralised allows situations like this to be dealt with pretty well.

 

[camouflage]

Bitcoins are worth stealing, no shit sherlock

I've never touched MtGox myself. Consider bitcoins like a titanium door embedded in the soft mushy goo that is everything else. Third party websites, human behavior, failure to backup, encrypt, password protect data etc.

These scandals will scare a lot of people off, price will fall for a bit, and then the bitcoin-buyers of last resort (the absolute bloody bitcoin fanatics) will plunge in to grab as many as they can. They're always ready to plunge in and buy as many as they can at whatever price level they can afford.

So when the dust has settled a bit people will notice bitcoins continuing upward trend. Personally I want more crap like this as the system must be tried by fire. So far it's the bits tacked on that buckle in the heat. Let this be a lesson to the exchanges, and to the way people practice data security.

 

[joustmaster]

There are a lot of angry people who bought coins at one cent.. its quite funny to read angry peoples post who thought they were going to be millionaires.

There is a video on YouTube of the price crashing when the 500k was sold. It's a pretty spectacular change.

 

[kabbes]

So what we have here is a "currency" whose value can actually be controlled by a single entity? An entity that can just decide to abandon trades they don't like and so take values back to whatever date they want?

That's... brilliant.

 

[joustmaster]

So what we have here is a "currency" whose value can actually be controlled by a single entity? An entity that can just decide to abandon trades they don't like and so take values back to whatever date they want?

That's... brilliant.

roll backs aren't uncommon in all traditional exchanges.

And mtgox isn't the only exchange for bitcoin either.

 

[camouflage]

So what we have here is a "currency" whose value can actually be controlled by a single entity? An entity that can just decide to abandon trades they don't like and so take values back to whatever date they want?

That's... brilliant.

Yeah... turns out it's not that simple. There are some very interesting issues involved, but MtGox do not make the market. What they've done is attempt damage control, but there is plenty of lesson all round. People have already started selling bitcoins on eBay now, not to mention the transactions arranged at bitcoin-otc (irc site) etc. New exchange tradehill.com helps a lot as well.


I find the whole thing really fascinating, it's like a great big grand adventure through the frankly barmy world of economics, crowd-psycology acting like thermo-dynamics. Funny seeing all the libertards and anarcho-caps running headlong into issues of regulation, cartels and monopoly power.

In two years time bitcoin value will have appreciated vastly, that's my opinion, and there'll be no Bitcoin v2 as you only need to invent the wheel once, but the infrastructure development, the clients, the mentalities involved... all that's going to undergo many an upgrade. A lot of people are going to learn a lot of stuff. Me amongst em.

Brave new world maaan.