Doesn't seem to phase a lot of people. I only watch bitcoin for fun and I saw one post on reddit, which the author had a very good explanation on why bitcoin could likely be at 100 dollars or lower by the end of 2015. What's amusing is he started off the post saying that he's buying in weekly increments. *face palm*

People are starting to realize that despite the popular saying amongst bitcoin enthusiasts, who proclaim, "bitcoin is like the internet in 1994" -- people are starting to realize that bitcoin will never be much more than the internet in 1994 either. It's becoming a pretty big joke amongst top programmers and technological experts.

2014.02.14:

2015.01.05:
Sorry housenuts, I'm not trying to pick on you, but for anyone in this position, please just sell while your coins are still worth something and invest in something useful instead. I'd recommend the S&P 500 for anything you just want to buy & hold for the long-term.

I'm a dinosaur though, what do I know.

Joe will probably never trust Coinbase or Circle that way. Especially since the government is very unlikely to bailout a failed/hacked/robbed bitcoin company.

like who?

BTC is off 25% ... in the last 20 minutes.

It's been a year, how many solutions have come to market?

That was 12 hours ago we are now at $185 or so.

Wow the price is still dropping fast, I went to sleep it was at 225 and woke up to 165, at these prices I would be happy to start buying and keep buying more if it drops more. In the long term I still think prices will go back up significantly.

Trezor http://satoshilabs.com/news/page/3/ A bit over a year ago they were still taking preorders.

Bitgo https://www.bitgo.com/ multisig made easy. Bitstamp recently used them to implement multisig addresses.

Bitcoin ATMs http://coinatmradar.com/charts/#growth A year ago there were almost none. Now there's nearly 350.

I think everyone is forgetting what the market was like one year ago. Every year buying and storing bitcoins gets easier and easier.

Hopefully someone can come up with something better than this, if bitcoin has any future at all.

GG?

Wow, it lost 50% of its value in a few days. Yep, I'm definitely going to buy into the ecosystem and use this as a store of wealth!!

Its pretty clear we are the serfs, ladies. Krugman wins, time to buy pencils for his schools.

VC money is flowing into Ripple as well, which is widely rubbished here. They also have a lot of real world partners. And Ripple actually solves real world problems that bitcoin cannot. If VC is your guide, sell bitcoin and buy Ripple.

I would like a secure transaction in seconds. How can I get that with bitcoin, and why wasn't it put in to begin with??

I'll tell you why. Because the technology can't do it. It's fundamentally flawed. When transaction volume ramps up, the network can't guarantee security with that volume of transactions. That's why 10 minutes was chosen. Which is obvious if you simply think about it. There is no simple solution to this problem; it is an inherent flaw in decentralized proof of work public ledgers. You think they chose 10 minutes because they prefer to have ultra slow transactions??? No, sir. It's because of a flaw/limitation in the technology itself.

The only way to have decentralized secure transactions in bitcoin is to wait a frigging hour for six confirmations, and even then it isn't necessary secure. You're telling me that this feature was put in by design??? LMAO. No. It's that way because the protocol is completely flawed/limited and can't be any other way (like anything in CS, there is a tradeoff between two things here: speed vs security/reliability. The basic structure of bitcoin means that the tradeoff is only acceptable at a minimum of 10 minutes). This is a fundamental problem with the protocol, and the fact that bitcoin proponents don't simply admit it - instead trying to fudge and attack others, as you have - makes me not trust anything you say.

You can "solve" it with payment channels, but then you're back to square one. You no longer have an anonymous decentralized non trust network. You have imaginary balances and identities at a centralized hub. Ask Mt Gox customers how well that goes. Payment channels are centralized hubs that require, hohoho, trust and centralization. They're exactly like banks or CC companies. So you gain absolutely nothing by holding bitcoin.

Again, what real world problem does bitcoin solve that isn't done better by something else?

[ ] Instantaneous secure payments without a trusted third party
[ ] Near instantaneous secure payments without trusted third party
[ x ] 1+ hour somewhat secure payments without a trusted third party provided the network doesn't **** up.
[ ] Safe, easy storage of wealth
[ ] Stable storage of value
[ ] Low fee fast transactions

Why is no one here able to make a case for what real world, meaningful scale problem that bitcoin actually solves? For something like Ripple I can do that easily - it actually solves real world problems (providing a reliable agnostic trust network between people wanting to trade practically anything) better than other solutions.

You guys - the very bitcoin "experts" - really have no idea what you're talking about. The "experts" claimed that a single entity gaining 51% of the network was "impossible". Then ASICs came along and blew the experts out of the water, leading to centralization of power as the world's CPUs/GPUs became worthless as miners.

I'll trade you my oceanfront property in Wyoming for some of your Ripple.

Bitstamp was the gateway to transfer BTC and ripple. Since Bitstamp can get hacked or go out of business, if they do that your bitcoin on the ripple network are worthless? Basically you are trusting a gateway, I prefer not to trust anyone. If you have ripple from Gateway A, can you go to Gateway B to redeem your ripple?

That's exactly my point:
Ripple has more large-scale partnerships (from Google Ventures to Horowitz to Lightspeed) flowing into it than bitcoin. It is utterly illogical to invest in bitcoin on the basis of "VC money" and "smart money and minds", but avoid/rubbish Ripple, which unlike bitcoin actually solves real problems that people want solved.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113293...lated-websites

It seems the problem is more to do with the governments around the world killing bitcoin and not bitcoin itself. China and Russia really seem to be clamping down. Printing money and QE is a massive tax and government literally make trillions off of it. In the USA you have to pay capital gains on it (losses) thus is a paperwork nightmare. Government is telling you to sell bitcoin, quit your job, and watch youtube and over the air t.v. 1 million Ruble fine to use cryptos, would you use it in Russia?

I've only spent bitcoin a couple times and in my experience it was a matter of scanning a QR and hitting send, saying thanks and walking out. It was literally a matter of seconds.

Everything is exaggerated in terms of price. Once the price starts moving up, no one wants to sell, and price makes a huge bubble. Just seeing the opposite, even if you want to acquire more, why would you, when you can wait for the bottom? So no buying, thin markets, and this will happen. Just a reverse bubble.

I am shocked that Toothsoother is so incredibly wrong and also a Ripple advocate, makes so much sense now.

OMG - system designed to solve problem X doesn't solve problem Y, therefore flawed! Yes this hammer sucks, can't even screw in a nail.

I guess we are in the DL of HODL :-/

I'm willing to bet 2:1 that BTC will hit $90 within 3 months.

I would never buy Ripple. It's just an interesting comparison with bitcoin when you can use the same arguments used for bitcoin to support something which is ridiculed by bitcoin advocates. And you haven't shown what I'm actually wrong about, let alone "incredibly wrong".

Again, what mainstream problem does bitcoin solve? I have no problem if you claim "bitcoin solves a distributed trust problem and it does it in a very slow and cumbersome way that has multiple flaws". Or that it has some possible niche uses like anonymous contracting. It's the advocates themselves that are making bitcoin a hammer for a screw - they claim it's superior to fiat, superior as a payment system, superior as a trust system, all of which is nonsense. You yourself claimed it was equal to gold - which is just hilarious on so many levels. Advocates say such things because they know that bitcoin as an investment, indeed a protocol is only interesting if there's a case it will be widely used as money - nothing else will support its market cap.

One of your bull cases - namely that it will be used by people in the 2nd/3rd world as currencies drop - got dealt a huge blow by Russia yesterday. Over the past few months, all of that declining ruble in a technically aware country, and bitcoin STILL has been going down. And yesterday, Russia is now banning/blocking the use of bitcoin sites (others will follow). I think we can declare that bull aspect dead.

Lol at reverse bubble. I like to call it the laws of math or supply/demand.

I repeat myself again.. THIS PIG NEEDS TO FALL A LOT FURTHER UNTIL IT STOPS FALLING.

Yes there may be some more dead cat bounces/ bull traps.. but every one of them will be out done by the continuous printing of coins. ($21 mil a month printed is still too much)

I've revised my earlier prediction of sub $100 within 5 years to sub $50 within 5 years.