151–160 of 260 posts
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Interesting point. I have some BTC at Coinbase. Not sure how I proceed to own the keys?
Get another wallet (such as hive) and send the BTC from Coinbase to that.
There is nothing that can guarantee that this ride is real, but here are a few things: 1. However big is MMM, it's probably too small for the size of the bitcoin economy right now. Remember that if you are transacting in bitcoin, there is one party buying and the other one selling. So you are not rising the price to the moon. 2. The number of transactions has been growing again as of late. It's heating at the blockch…
I'm not sure what you mean by "real" here. Even if demand is created from questionable/fraudulent sources, the transactions are just as real as any others. That's not to say it's sustainable or even driven by rational behavior (it never really is). Any trend, bubble or not, is just that - a trend. There may be numerous factors driving it, and it's almost never a good idea to make trading decisions based on the trend itself (the few exceptions of traders should be very aware of the limitations and risks involved in such a strategy).
> We'll see if the new fancy infrastructure that bitcoin got is rock-solid.
Are you referring to Bitcoin XT / BIP 101? As far as I'm aware[1], the support for this is still represented by a minority, so we're not really going to see any "new fancy infrastructure" tested, at least not for a while.
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I sense unwarranted criticism here – it's not like the ups and downs of BitCoin are going to affect a major economy any time soon (or ever). It's more a good thing there's this new game speculators can play; even if someone games the system, it isn't going to affect anything of value (e.g. a company producing something of value). It's not like BitCoin is ever going to be a major currency, or a real currency, really.…
Btc is as real a currency as it gets, I bought VPSs with it just like I have bought them by unsafer payment methods in the past (supplying credit card info). Although more common in the trading of digital commodities, you can buy physical goods such as clothes and pizza with it, depending where you live. It just doesn't enjoy widespread adoption outside the digital world yet.
Wow! A VPS! Something that 99% of the population has no use for. How about paying rent, medical bills, utilities, phone bill, groceries, tuition, gas, car payment, car insurance, car maintenance, tolls, daycare, taxes... you know, the kind of things that real people actually care about.
> just like I have bought them by unsafer payment methods in the past
Bitcoin is by far the most unsafe method of payment for 99% of the population. Credit cards offer comprehensive fraud protection; bitcoin offers zero protection and zero recourse if your money is stolen or lost due to a crash/virus/hack/forgot to backup my wallet before formatting (and when this happens, the user is always blamed, duh, you should have bought a trezor!). With a credit card none of this happens, and if money is somehow stolen from your credit card, the card is quickly deactivated and the victim is fully reimbursed for any fraudulent charges.
This straight up LIE about the safety of bitcoin relative to credit cards is infuriating.
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On top of that, remember that bitcoin has many prices, the most important ones being US dollar, Euro and Chinese Yuan. Right now bitcoin is around 500USD, but it's sitting on 450EUR. People buying in euros will be confident that the price will go up to 500EUR and they'll keep pushing up the price. Wich will push CNY price to 3450CNY, a very ugly price, so it will probably move to 3500CNY.
With all due respect, I don't think that's how markets work. I know that people tend to psychologically anchor to round figures, but I don't see this situation playing out as you've described.
It's amusing to me how, on this subject, Hacker News comments draw closer to regular internet comments in terms of the ratio of detailed discussion to biting one-liners. I'm inclined to think that it demonstrates how very silly the whole thing is, that even us eggheads get snarkily dismissive, but I'm sure some will disagree...
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I do as well. What's wrong with leaving it there?
Many times in the past bitcoin companies have been hacked, embezzled or otherwise lost user funds. There is no recourse.
Many times, other companies have had that happen, and there is all kinds of recourse. To the extent bitcoin companies are special, its because people participating in the bitcoin craze have been willing to entrust large amounts of value with companies that don't have the basic characteristics that would otherwise establish trustworthiness, or at least accountability.
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You're the kind of person who upon seeing a gun shot victim and as the coroner says, " He was killed by a bullet entering the body and piercing the heart" would shout out "Correlation does not imply causation" reflexively. Do you really not think the general population's interest in bitcoin has any effect on the price?
Or maybe price is driving the interest?
There is nothing that can guarantee that this ride is real, but here are a few things: 1. However big is MMM, it's probably too small for the size of the bitcoin economy right now. Remember that if you are transacting in bitcoin, there is one party buying and the other one selling. So you are not rising the price to the moon. 2. The number of transactions has been growing again as of late. It's heating at the blockch…
> There is nothing that can guarantee that this ride is real I'm not sure what you mean by "real" here. Even if demand is created from questionable/fraudulent sources, the transactions are just as real as any others. That's not to say it's sustainable or even driven by rational behavior (it never really is). Any trend, bubble or not, is just that - a trend. There may be numerous factors driving it, and it's almost ne…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is nothing that can guarantee that this ride is real I'm not sure what you mean by "real" here. Even if demand is created from questionable/fraudulent sources, the transactions are just as real as any others. That's not to say it's sustainable or even driven by rational behavior (it never really is). Any trend, bubble or not, is just that - a trend. There may be numerous factors driving it, and it's almost ne…
You misunderstand his point. The MMM ponzi schemers presumably don't want to hold bitcoins forever, and would be selling them for local currencies; if each bitcoin bought by a MMM victim is being immediately sold by a MMM con artist, then the net effect is zero and the effect on the price is much less than however much is being laundered and the price is boosted only by the float (however much bitcoins are being held…
To explain a bit more: If a merchant receives fraudulent credit card transactions, he/she could reasonably refer to those as "not real" because once the banks discover the fraud, they have the power to move money and effectively nullify those transactions in many cases.
In contrast, on the blockchain (and off the blockchain for most bitcoin exchanges), that kind of thing doesn't normally happen. Even in Mt Gox's case where they directly manipulated the price from the inside, the people who bought and sold on the exchange still experienced "real" price movement, and as long as they got their money/BTC out before Gox imploded (which is another matter), those transactions and price movements were every bit as real as any other. From the perspective of other exchanges at the time it didn't matter at all whether the driving force for the trend was fraud or completely legitimate behavior.
Finally, if MMM's "net effect is zero" as you say, then we wouldn't be seeing the price movement that we're seeing (and a price "boosted only by the float" is no different from a price boosted by anything else), or perhaps MMM just isn't the primary driving force in the current trend.