Early adopter taking profits, late comers( almost everyone here) is going to lose a lot. This story has played out countless times before. Fun to watch in real time though.

What do you mean by this? If people will eventually hold less coins who/what will be buying and holding them? Are you suggesting Jean and Gregory Girard are going to be successful in their ultimate goal only to have cats and dogs trade their currency for BTC?

I have often wondered about this too. I have also wondered about the possibility that hackers could potentially make counterfeit coins or in some way trick one site that allows BTC trading or is a wallet into some kind of scam that ends up scaring a significant amount of BTC users. Remember it only takes one moron to yell "fire" in a confined space to cause mayhem.

Take 25 mins and watch this video:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx9zgZCMqXE

This is true in a ponzi scheme, but may not necessarily be true in this case. For example, my grandfather was a late adopter of the USD. He used dollars to buy and sell stuff his whole life and while he lost a decent amount due to inflation I wouldn't say he lost a lot. In theory BTC could be like the USD in this way.

Overstock hires Counterparty founder. The plan is to build a decentralized stock market.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/com...mody_hired_by/

Well so much for any hope for Overstock's project being any good. LOL @ publishing bids/asks on the blockchain.

Except the early adopters are the most fervent believers. But hey, keep that victory lap going when we still are up 177% over last year.

This^

When every other post is some holder reassuring themselves that "this is the bottom", sorry, game over.

Go back ITT to the first pages and the topics were "what are coins?", "how do I get them, where do I use them?"... occasionally it was a discussion on investment... now everyone posting is looking to turn some miracle investment. There is near zero discussion on the actual utility and value of the coin at present. I see lots of hopeful speculation, and thin and fading hype. I don't see new "what are bitcoins?" blood anywhere. It seems like the previous price and trading metrics are the only justification made for sell/buy prices... A drop from $1k to $300 is freaking peanuts when you consider the rise from fractions of pennies to even just $50. This has a long way to go down. I'd get off the ship..

Thank you for posting. Very interesting video even though some of it went over my head.

Do I have this right? (I assume I am missing something but I can't figure out what it is.)

So right now miners are working equations to process other peoples transactions because they are rewarded with a batch of newly found btc. How long will it be until there are no more btc to be newly found (I think the video said every year the amount found is cut in half - which leads me to believe this will never happen)? Am I correct to assume once there are no more btc to be mined the amount of energy spent on processing transactions will decrease even though some/most miners will still process transactions for those doing the transactions for a fee? If less people are using energy processing these transactions doesn't that increase the likelihood that one person/group can solve multiple equations in a row and thus cheat the system the way the video describes?

It has almost always been a speculative investment. You don't see "What are Bitcoins?" because there is enough information anyone with half a brain can just look it up themselves and more people actually know what they are discussing.

We've seen your post 3 or 4 times at every other bubble pop declaring victory, yet here we are today. Boring.

You are right, the drop right now is nothing, and has happened many times, and we still are up 177% from last year.

Very few people admit they are that useful now. We are futurists, seeing where they will be useful down the road. Seeing potential rather than reality. You just don't have that ability, no problem, you can wait until the speculation game is over and reality sets in. There are real problems being solved, real infrastructure being built. Rome wasn't built in a day.

You interested in shorting? We are at $325 now. Want to bet that we see $650 before $167.5?

The reason those questions aren't asked anymore is because the answers to all of them are very easily attainable with a simple google search.

what are coins?
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...t+are+bitcoins

how do I get them?
It used to be you had to go on localbitcoins.com and meet up face to face and that was the only way. Now we have ATMs, Circle, Coinbase, Bitstamp and thank god no more MtGox.

where do I use them?
It used to be you couldn't do much of anything with them. Now you can spend them on overstock and dell. You can play poker and sports bet with them. You can send them to friends or family across the globe.

This is real infrastructure being built. Speculation on the price will drive more innovation and use cases for bitcoin. No one is going to bother building or setting up bitcoin ATMs for a currency worth close to nothing.

People speculate -> Price rises -> Drives more adoption and infrastructure being built -> People speculate and cycle repeats

It's already been discussed ad nauseum that the price of bitcoin is not going to zero so there has to be a floor. If you think it's going to zero you're going to have to explain how the whole system is going to collapse and people don't want to gamble or buy drugs online anymore. IMO the upside is much greater than potential downside at this price.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

Bitbet just decided Tim Draper paid more than market price and just resolved the bet accordingly after 3 months in limbo. Worst customer service. Glad to never paid there again.

The reward has already been cut in half once before. There wasn't chaos. More and more of the mining reward will be moved to tx fees. Right now the network is funded more through inflation (funded by all holders) rather than active users (tx fees). That just gradually shifts over time. Mining may become very efficient by that time (it's an eternity away), with miners built into things like water heaters or space heaters and become common.

The lower the difficulty, the easier it is to "cheat" the system. I'm not sure the difficulty has decreased during adjustments more than 1 or 2 times in history. It's been pretty rare, and certainly if you account for after there was any adoption at all (2010+).

Sure, how do we see this bet through though? And how much do you want to bet?

Inb4 it hits neither $167.5 not $650 for 5 years

very nice (and a hearty thank you). i loaded up sat/sun. just scooped ~20 btc and i'll keep a bunch to trade and ride the wave.

Nice, congratulations.

I'd just continue to hold for a couple months or so at least. I don't have any inside information, but things are looking very, very good.

I had the 3 btc on the no. I saw it was resolved yes and asked where the **** they got that info and they replied

http://trilema.com/2014/the-usg-wast...-nobody-cares/
which is obv absolutely no such source what so ever.

I don't really ever get scammed, but this was a clear scam. The people talk like they are from a different planet when I was trying to find out if bets were going to be refunded or not. Here is what they wrote to me:

The guy said he had been talking to mods about it and this was the chat:

" Hi,

here is my arguing with the mods about it.

<support> pressing "publish this proposal" does not make the bet automatically 'correct'.
<mods> i know, but think of a bet like a baby. you can consider a baby unwanted and wear a condom.
<mods> you can, if you're lucky, consider it unwanted and maybe convince the girl to get an abortion, if it's early enough
<mods> but you can't consider it unwanted when it's 3 years old and ****ing annyoing as all hell
<support> but if the baby turns out to be ******ed, it should receive the proper care no? or do you send it to military school?
<mods> i do, yes.
<support> to die.
<mods> to whatever may come.
<mods> but anyway, don't get me wrong, i can fully appreciate the argument. it sucks having a bet open for so ****ing endlessly long


Best,
Support
"

So I'm like.. wtf does that mean and he replies "which part is troublesome"

Anyhow.. I ain't got no time for dat! Chalk it up as a lesson learned. Hurts a bit less now that BTC is also at 300 and not 600.

Maybe he did?

Ha! I should've used more of those chips for bitcoin instead of hookers n blow

But I hear you.
I got a non-poker buddy into bitcoin at sub $200 levels and he took the ride up the charts with me.
The guy nearly lost his shiit.
The swings were driving him nuts, and he would text me every time it swung a couple %, asking if it was time to sell.
He actually sold around $750, like you, and hes been traveling off the money since. Definitely a good decision.

We'll see

I am not suggesting there will be chaos or this will happen all of a sudden over night. However, if the supply of BTC created keeps dwindling then the only incentive to keep mining is transaction fees. Considering one of the main pros to BTC is the fact that there are little to no transaction fees associated with it this could end up hurting BTC.

Unless I am looking at the table that was linked a few posts above in the wiki link wrong by 2052 (only 38 yrs away) the amount of BTC mined is fairly insignificant compared to the amount mined today. Thus significantly decreasing the incentive to mine unless the price of bitcoin starts flying.

Again, I don't really know enough about BTC to really put up an argument that cheating is a real possibility down the road. I just want to hear why I am wrong/ why this doesn't make sense.

Personally I think mining is unnecessary and wasteful, therefore an altcoin that uses Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work will take over from bitcoin longterm (or else bitcoin will switch to Proof of Stake).