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Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

arstechnica.com

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Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#91

Post by laumars »

icebraining wrote: post #84
laumars wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin is a very useful tool. It's the email of money. I hope not because email should have been replaced a decade ago (no native end-to-end nor encryption. Node-to-node encryption (eg SSL) isn't standard let along the default, no native support for binary objects and base64 MIME increases files sizes by ~30%, and the mess of plain text and half supported HTML across the plethora of clients make designing mailshot…

What exactly would be the point of native end-to-end encryption over PGP? The problem with email encryption is solving the authentication part, not the encryption itself.

    > What exactly would be the point of native end-to-end encryption over PGP?
Basically just universal compatibility with clients and ease of use.

It's a bit how you could have all your important Word documents in a password protected compressed archive. But having password protection and zip compression native in OOXML is more convenient for users and guarantees than anyone with an OOXML compatible office suite has support to open the same documents (baring authentication of course).

    > The problem with email encryption is solving the authentication part, not the encryption itself.
It's both. Emails are typically transmitted in clear text so having something having them encrypted by default is a huge step up. (a bit like how people should be moving away from FTP and using SFTP, or SSH instead of telnet).

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#92

Post by epscylonb »

downandout wrote: post #19

The fact that Bitcoin has flourished despite numerous high profile incidents of theft and fraud, the relative difficulty associated with buying and selling them, and the rather unsavory nature of many of its most popular uses today, is a testament to its long-term viability as a currency. The Bitcoin ecosystem has a long way to go before it is considered mainstream, but I believe its long-term success is almost inevi…

I'm a fan of bitcoin, and I think it may well have a bright future, but this recent rise over the last couple of months is probably a bubble.

New mining equipment called asics are being produced, at least one manufacturer, demands payment in bitcoin, and the price of bitcoin rises. Other people see the rising price and start thinking, hmmm should I buy an asic?.

My prediction is that by the end of the summer the price will be back to around $15, lots of people will have received their asic and will want to pay off the cost of the unit (~$1200+).

Of course there is always silk road, according the ars article last year they were doing 10,000 btc a week in revenue. Apart from SR I don't see where the demand is coming from except asics.

As I hold a few bitcoins, I would love to be proved wrong.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#93

Post by rcamera »

dhughes wrote: post #16
jasonkolb wrote: post #6

This sucks. I was just about to pick up a bunch last week at $29. Unfortunately it's not very straightforward to obtain.

What sucks is not knowing where your wallet is. I have .9 of a bitcoin somewhere transferred between a Linux PC and three different phones over two or three years. I have about $28 US somewhere.

I had this sort of issue. Back in 2010 I had mined a hundred coins (CPU mined, back in those days, lol). A month ago I decided to find the wallet file, took me 2 hours to search 5 HDDs with multiple partitions each from my old computers...

I fixed this problem now by printing the keys out, storing them securely in a safe and deleting the wallet files.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#94

Post by neilxdsouza »

netrus wrote: post #76
neilxdsouza wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit Coins represent trade in an Economy independent of the Rot Schild banks. There is no proof that the 2007 financial crises was not orchestrated on purpose. There is also no proof that that 2007 financial crises was orchestrated on purpose. But we do know that Goldman Sachs sold financial instruments to their clients which they betted against. When the clients lost that money the profiteers was Goldman Sachs. 1. If…

I cannot completely follow you, but your number of 17.2 Trillion is off by the factor 1.000, and the fortune of the Rothschild family spread and resolved from generation to generation, as large family fortunes always do.

You are right about my calculation mistake.

However This site : http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk has the UK GDP and national debt from at least 1750

In 1816, the GDP was 0.32 billion pounds. If you assume from 1816 the lending to UK govt bonds was the Rot Schild bank, the starting point of the Rot Schild base moeny that I took will be far more than USD 1 million. So I think you will arrive at a trillion any which ways.

The reason for this is that from that year going forward, the Rot Schild would have bought bonds from the govt (effectively lending them money) every year going ahead, giving them (the Rot Schilds) a passive income stream from then to now.

Each year a new income stream would have been added by loaning additional bonds, which was independent of the previous years income.

I don't know what numbers to plug in, perhaps that is left to someone more knowledgeable than me.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#95

Post by lmm »

shredfvz wrote: post #48
glesica wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illicit plus grey market and a few special cases. Fine, you win the Pedant's Prize for nitpicking. The point is that they don't make a good general-purpose currency. Just because they're awesome for buying drugs and secret VPNs doesn't mean very much in the grand scheme of things (most transactions, at least in the developed world, do not take place in the grey market). Also, just because some people do something doe…

Money is ultimately just a standardized indicator of wealth with no intrinsic value on its own, a definition shared by both USD and BTC. The downside of USD being that it can be counterfeited, illegally by unscrupulous individuals or legally by the Federal Reserve (see: QE Infinity). Regrettably, it's still super common for people to turn up their noses in disgust, claiming "Bitcoin Boogey Man, oh noezzz"! I'm sorry,…

Even in the presence of QE, the value of the USD remains more-or-less stable. I can go to bed confident that it's not going to cost me $10 to get a loaf of bread tomorrow. Bitcoin isn't and won't be useful to me as a currency until its value is stable.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#96

Post by speeder »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #62
yaix wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is a testament to its long-term viability as a currency. Until governments notice they are losing control and outlaw it.

It's not an easy feat to accomplish. You can't reliably outlaw it for citizens because in democratic societies it's kind of very hard to reliably harass citizens. Look at the copyright lobby and still not many people are really scared of persecution. They can easily take bitcoin-based businesses down but they would just shift to different/distributed jurisdictions (Japan, Eastern Europe) where they will be hell to co…

Mtgox alreadyrely on Japan and Europe, and yesterday's they announced they offloaded US operations to coinsomething that is YC alum

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#97

Post by ankeshk »

epscylonb wrote: post #92
downandout wrote: post #19

The fact that Bitcoin has flourished despite numerous high profile incidents of theft and fraud, the relative difficulty associated with buying and selling them, and the rather unsavory nature of many of its most popular uses today, is a testament to its long-term viability as a currency. The Bitcoin ecosystem has a long way to go before it is considered mainstream, but I believe its long-term success is almost inevi…

I'm a fan of bitcoin, and I think it may well have a bright future, but this recent rise over the last couple of months is probably a bubble. New mining equipment called asics are being produced, at least one manufacturer, demands payment in bitcoin, and the price of bitcoin rises. Other people see the rising price and start thinking, hmmm should I buy an asic?. My prediction is that by the end of the summer the pric…

This is a chart for number of bitcoin transactions per day: http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

ASIC hardware sales don't even make 1 days worth of transactions (when we account for the "number" of transactions). I don't see the bitcoin price going back to where it was 3 months ago.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#98

Post by wslh »

derringer wrote: post #87
vellum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more a testament to high demand than long term viability. In addition to the other things mentioned in this thread, Bitcoin lets you evade oppressive currency controls. For example, Argentina's real inflation rate is around 18-25%. Because of that, they've taken drastic measures to prevent their citizens from transferring money out of the country. Here's one guy’s story of using a Bitcoin mailing list to buy pes…

You speak of this as though it is a inherently bad thing to have centralized control. I'm as techno-libertarian as the next HN user, but I know that when the market riegns completely free there is a non-trivial chance that boons can swiftly turn into depressions. There is a reason the Greek government will impose draconian currency controls. It is for the benefit of the Greek people, so their savings accounts will on…

For sure, the Argentinian Government measures are not for the benefit of the Argentinian people.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#99

Post by lmm »

shredfvz wrote: post #54
trotsky wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the word you meant to use is speculate, not invest. and no, you shouldn't. there is a set of people who hold piles of bitcoins obtained when mining activity was minuscule or because they run pools, exchanges or such. The bitcoin spot price is almost entirely determined by how much this group is selling, and the general amount of demand from speculators. While they've learned a lot about effective market control since…

Surely the BTC price couldn't have anything to do with factors external to the market participants themselves ... ? Whenever the BTC price moves up or down, do you honestly believe "It's those blasted early adopters, at it again I tell you" You also appear to assume, incorrectly, that early adopters are just itching to exchange out into fiat currencies, as if their eyes are glued to their computer monitors, just wait…

>Whenever the BTC price moves up or down, do you honestly believe "It's those blasted early adopters, at it again I tell you"

Because of bitcoin's ludicrous generation curve the early adopters own what, 3/4 of all the bitcoins, guaranteed to be at least half of all those there will ever be? So yeah, price movements are likely to be their influence because they're the biggest owners.

>You also appear to assume, incorrectly, that early adopters are just itching to exchange out into fiat currencies, as if their eyes are glued to their computer monitors, just waiting for their lucky day to "cash out BIG" ... into fiat currency. Hmmmm

It only takes a few. They're sitting on these bitcoins that have shown themselves to be highly volatile, and at the moment their value is increasing by the day. Sooner or later many of these people are going to be in a position where they could get several hundred thousand dollars by selling up, if they're not there already. Is a crash certain? No, but it's wise to plan for that contingency.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#100

Post by vellum »

fourstar wrote: post #23

Can someone tell me if I should invest in this right now or not or did I miss the boat and I should just move on?

The problem with giving blanket investment advice is that different investors have different methodologies and timetables. For example, some people buy and sell stocks every few minutes, while some hold stocks for years. They also use different methods to predict future value, like algorithms. If you were to trust someone to tell you when to buy, you'd also need him to tell you when to sell.
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