Well, until you read about his "SixCalifornias" plan. LOL.

That six Californias thing doesn't seem so bad to me.

This makes it seem like sitting on the coins is somehow a bad thing. It's not. It's probably one of the best things you can do with the coins. Spending them on merchants that just flip it for cash being one of the worst. Nothing drives adoption faster than a rising price. People need to prefer to hold Bitcoins to other items is great for adoption. People looking to flip as fast as they get them doesn't drive adoption at all.

congrats to Mike Hearn for winning the 100k bounty for his Lighthouse project:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comm..._announcement/

I'm not sure a rising price drives adoption. At this point, at $600, a lot of people feel they have missed out and $600 is too much for them to 'invest' in bitcoin. It's also a common misconception of people that they need to buy a full bitcoin. The public needs to know they can buy half a bitcoin or any other fraction they so choose.

Switch to bits, which is happening now, that concern goes away. The number of people adopting for ideological reasons has pretty much saturated. That leaves two cases - adopting for speculation or adopting for superior use case. In terms of first world countries, speculation is the only one likely to hit for a while, especially with volatility. It offers a superior method of saving and the rising price is needed to combat the volatility downsides.

Emerging markets and places with poor banking/currencies have a different incentive structure.

And being able to invest does not only apply to individual investors. It's difficult for even larger scale investors to invest and to be secure at the same time, to acquire coins, etc... We are so far from having a good marketplace for actually getting coins, especially large amounts, safely, and storing safely, that it certainly is a bottleneck for price and adoption.

With individuals, speculation has been a huge driver of adoption. I watch attendance at meetups and it follows very closely with price. People are willing to accept payment in Bitcoin and hold when they believe the price will go up. The price is still considerably low for any kind of large scale uses, and would need to rise at least 5-10x to hit that point. We're not even close.

People thought they missed the boat at $1, at $7, at $30, at $100. Thinking they miss the boat at $600 is nothing new. I remember bitching I missed the boat when I couldn't get money to an exchange until it hit $7.

Let's assume Bitcoin does succeed and its adoption results in large scale uses; how many years do you think it takes to get to that point? Obv there is a spectrum from where it is now and "large scale uses" , but I'm just curious what your thoughts are on how quickly things will progress.

There are a few stages I see. You absolutely need the value higher to make the investment in infrastructure worthwhile. For this, I am talking about mainstream usable wallets, bank-like services that protect the coins so people don't need to be a security expert or have an offline computer, etc...

Before that, I think we see some applications in the B2B arena or even as an underlying mechanism for doing something within a business (think of Western Union using it for remittance to send to places for pickup, exchanges partnering with local exchanges, etc...

As consumer adoption, it will first be in the unbanked areas or the poor currencies. Youll see things like 37coins handling places with dumbphones and SMS to transfer. You'll also see things like an explosion in a place like Argentina whenever the next LATAM currency crisis occurs. But you need better mainstream usability at that point. I think that kind of adoption is a good 5 years ahead, with some business adoption maybe in 2-3. Right now is the time for investment and speculation which makes putting resources into those areas easier and provide more liquidity so that less speculative investors don't deal with volatility.

Tim Draper press conference at 5pm EST: http://new.************com/draperuni...itcoin-auction

link doesn't want to show in 2p2. find it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comm...on_**********/

edit: ugh. replace the **** in either address with livestre*m (the * being an a)

I don't think sitting on them is bad but I think for the longer term picture putting them into use and showing their utility is far more +EV for everyone. Although that being said I don't fully understand Vaurums intended use of them so idk.

Spending on merchants who flip isn't bad either imo, most Bitcoiners are bulls so most will be buying back (and needing to buy back gives them the opportunity to buy more back), and it's a good demonstration as Bitcoin as a currency. For people not buying back, it's a good alternative exit over cashing them out for fiat, you demonstrate Bitcoins utility and encourage merchant adoption, then the merchants sell for fiat, which is better than just selling for fiat.

Draper just wouldn't say what he paid. This means we must wait for the government to release it under the Freedom of Information Act. It's possible we'll never know.

Woot! They asked my question from the stream about regulatory outlook considering the sale! I love the way everything about Bitcoin is so interactive and accessible

Showing their utility is a flawed perception. People know about potential utility. Someone implementing doesn't prove much except to laggards.

Merchant selling for fiat right away is minorly better, only that it adds "legitimacy" and is free advertising for Bitcoin. But in reality it drives no interest.

I would argue that keeping 19mln worth of bitcoins out of the market could artificially inflate the price.

That these 19mln are due to hit the market and be used in some sort of utility and the price has stayed firm is better as a believer, and owner, of bitcoin.

Hopefully with more coins in the system, and the number of people holding them *hopefully* spread out - volatility should decrease.

If one of these deep value investing funds bought them and just held them, I would be happy at first thinking, right, there is less coins in the system now for people to buy as one large investor is holding - but I think volatility would remain high.

I think there are many ways to think about it but I'm hoping that just at a fundamental level the fact that they have openly said they are going to use them to facilitate transactions and keep them in the system and the price has gone up is a better outcome then that person just sitting on them. (in the long run - strictly speaking). Hopefully this spreads the ownership out to many merchants sitting on a few bitcoins to speculate, but this is speculation on my part.

In theory these coins could find their way to long term holders anyway by them entering the system through merchants but then finding their way to the same buyers who are buying and hoarding now.

Who knows.

How are you defining adoption that doesn't include using bitcoins for commerce? If people aren't spending then they might as well be Beanie Babies.

Store of value is by far the simplest use cases of Bitcoin. The fact that it has value can be that it is so easily transportable, easily divisible, counterfeit-proof, and fixed supply.

I define adoption as people who actively hold some amount of Bitcoins. If I want to count passing around the same unwanted nickel, I'd consider Dogecoin a success.

http://themisescircle.org/blog/2014/...cant-have-any/

nice post

What about this makes it artificial? At any point in time, someone is holding Bitcoins. This is the only thing that gives it value at all.

I'm still trying to see how they will be used. It does not sound like they are going to hit the open market.

That's not how it works. And coins are less spread out. Volatility is going to be proportional to risk and liquidity. We are far from liquid now with terrible exchanges still and there are many unknowns. We also have very low total value, so that will have to increase in order to get major market makers to even take notice.

Oh noes, the volatility. The volatility is one of the main reasons for just about anyone to hold at this point.

And maybe the price would have gone up more otherwise. Merchants aren't holding coins (beyond a few). They are just dumping them for cash and are using it as a way to get users of Bitcoin to dump.

That's exactly how it works. If no one wants to hold a currency (see Dogeecoin), it just gets passed round and round and just stops until someone can find a way to dump it. It holds no value. If some wants to hold it to use for later, it finds its ways into hands of people who prefer to hold Bitcoin over dollars or other assets, and gives it value.

more awesome customer service from bitbet over their silk road auction bet that seems it may never resolve


lolz

LOL betting at these joke sites. Seriously, if anyone wants to get together and make something better, let me know.

Those emails are ridiculous.

Is this even legal?

TC fwiw, I agree, and hope everyone agrees, that the key to this actually working in the end is that people are willing to bear the risk of holding rather than just simply turning it in for cash. So, for that reason if they hold them it is good because they believe there is value in holding it. The artificial part that I meant was that there are less coins available in the open market for people to purchase, thus keeping the price artificially inflated. We need mass adoption and many participants willing to hold.

Coins are so divisible, it's not like it affects people having the ability to hold coins. We need to switch to the bit unit (hate the name, love the unit) just so people realize how divisible it is.

I lol'd