http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/12/ne...fighting-back/

LOL New Jersey.

I'm running a pool. I have a friend in Norway who wants in. I told him to bitcoin me the $20. He has no idea what bitcoin is and insists on just snail mailing me the money. Lol.

I told him if he wins the pool I am bitcoining him the winnings. What is the easiest wallet for him to set up? Kryptokit? I'm trying to get other friends on board too, but need the simplest introductory method.

There's no reason to think that everyone will all decide to sell all at once. It doesn't create a bubble, people will gradually divest, as they have been since the beginning.

Seems like everything is working just fine, then. People are gradually divesting, its being used in commerce more, and growth slows down.

https://blockchain.info/

Thank you for participating in this thread. We need more intelligent and coherent bears in here!

If he is analyzing Bitcoin as an economist then he failed IMO. But, we'll see!

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The comparison to the internet may be too broad. Here's what I mean:

It is a very new technology that looks like a REALLY big deal to a lot of intelligent people who understand it well.

To the layman it doesn't have obvious uses and it is too hard to use to be worthwhile anyway.

Current experts in peripheral fields miss-analyze it. It is a paradigm breaker so it doesn't fit their worldview.

Bitcoin is a global decentralized network of 'programmable money'.

Personally I think that the programmability of Bitcoin, and the currently-peripheral features like digital signatures, proof of ownership, multi-party transactions, etc. will be a bigger deal than its uses as a straight replacement for traditional currencies. Because it is potentially so different than traditional money it is impossible to grasp or predict its future.

For example - imagine if your Social Security number was replaced by a Bitcoin address. Currently your Social Security number is both your identifier and your proof of ownership. That is absurdly insecure! Same problem with credit cards.

Another example - We 'digitally signed' the papers to refinance our house. That amounted to clicking a button with absolutely no security at all.

It's shocking to see these attacks on bitcoin right now, because according to a few of you, there's no incentive for anyone to attack it so no one will!

It's a computer/electronic version of cash. It basically has all the pros and cons of cash.

But I think you're redefining what "security" means to different stakeholders.

Please tell us how all of this fits the modern financial system where the government wants to know exactly where medium amounts of money are going to and coming from? The government sets the rules, and they don't want anonymity.

As an interested observer, I also fail to see what makes Bitcoin better than 50 other copy-cat alternatives that work the same? If Bitcoin is not better than them, or if each of them has some sort of small advantage, all you will see is a fragmented market that results in substantial transaction costs and fees.

Rant, what you are missing is that in 1991, every single person in the world knew that the Internet was huge, and even though it was completely unusable by anyone other than ubergeeks, everyone knew they would be buying a huge amount of their household goods on it, getting music and movies from it, communicating with their friends on it, and having mobile devices to give them information on any subject they need instantaneously. I mean that was pretty obvious stuff in 1991. But this Bitcoin thing is different, in that no one can ever use it in the future except a few cryptogeeks.

I think these attacks are likely someone who both wants to get the bugs fixed in the broken systems and wants to buy cheap coins. This is a great thing to happen for long term believers.

The reason it is better is the network effect. Euros are less useful in the US because very few people will accept them. Whatever random cryptocoin of the moment is not as useful because no one will accept or use it. Now there may be some niches where this isn't true, but there will be a dominant winner in this for the majority of actions, and some small players that serve out some niches. But even so, and you had 50 different ones all equally as good, the ability to exchange one for another is trivially easy and low cost compared to exchanging other currencies.

Maybe I'm just a layman, but say the programmability is Bitcoins' true value, why would the predictions people have made of sky-high values per coin make sense? Does it's programmability as you put it depend on the price per coin being $10,000?

Silk Road 2 coins stolen

http://www.deepdotweb.com/2014/02/13...nknown-amount/

Gonna be some serious overhead pressure with all these thieves selling their coins.

oooouch

As each use case adds functionality on having a blockchain, the value of coins necessarily increases. $10K is an extreme lowball estimate if it actually is used in any real capacity for those use cases.

All of the problems coming down on bitcoin at once is certainly going to create lasting uncertainty and turn away those who were considering bitcoin as an investment for the time being. The silver lining is that every time these exploits and threats to the protocol take place, the community is very resilient and is able to learn and correct them for the future. More exploits will likely be discovered but with each one that is spotted and corrected it only makes the protocol stronger.

Turning away people who are scared of this stuff is probably a good thing at this point in time. I can't tell if we have reached early adopter stage or just are at innovators. Probably right between the two as we speak. Trying to do too much without getting the foundation correct is going to create problems that are hard to undo.

It also gives additional opportunities for those who are just finding out about it a chance to get back in while still giving them a chance to ride a few more waves up. This pattern seems to repeat - huge rise with some big adoption wave, followed by mania, followed by popping and stagnation for a period of time, followed by another huge rise. This is the third cycle. The first down period was 1.5 years, the second was only 6 months. The dips are less severe each time (66% drop in the first, 50% drop in the last 2).

I still remember a lot of super-optimistic targets in July last year of 500-1000 in July 2014. Things blew up faster than expected and returning to where they should be. Nothing has fundamentally changed, though.

I feel like people had more optimism about bitcoin when it hit $250 than today at $668. This seems backwards.

Price psychology. You base something's value based on what it cost yesterday, not it's history. People got used to the high prices, and that became the new norm. Any deviation is based on that.

I always train myself to look at a 1 week and 6 month chart dealing with this to get in the right mindset.

I agree with all of this except the cycle reasoning. It's clear we're seeing cycles but each one has largely been event driven. They're getting more spaced apart as more diversification is occurring across the community. Take the 266 crash as an example, before that every day to day cycle happened whenever gox was DDos'd. I remember f5ing over and over during those days to snap sell whenever gox came back on just so i could buy when the flash crash would stop. As major events stop happening we see should less cycles in that regard, and it will act more like a typical commodity investment would, where supply and demand expand and contract based on macro conditions.

EDIT: I think I remember you mentioning like 50 pages back that you are based in Long Island, is that correct? We should meet up for a drink some time (as long as we don't discuss economics with each other )

Is there much $ to be made in alt-coin trading? I don't know much about forex trading, but I assume it's somewhat similar. I also imagine people have programs that analyze charts and stuff, and also enough $$ to move markets.

I'm just a newb. Is this an area one can learn quickly and make some decent coin (pun intended) flipping coins?

I agree with this post.

Sure, there are triggers for each beginning and end. I am not in Long Island, I am in Texas. Would meet up if I was closer!

I'm sure there's money to be made, but you need to have some kind of edge or just be lucky.

yes. obviously there needs to be an edge. i'm just wondering how easy it is to get such an edge.

Read every crypto board and news site there is and try to guess what to buy/sell based on the buzz. I know people that are already doing this and made some money at it. It's basically all luck though and I'm not sure where you could find an edge.