Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

bitcoincharts.com

51–60 of 116 posts

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#51

What is the price of tulip bulbs in the Netherlands these days? What have been the ups and downs in that commodity over the years?

I've posted that on HN because Bitcoin is not just some commodity, but a useful technology that allows you to do many interesting things besides payments. See http://blog.oleganza.com/post/42262765318/direct-use-value-o...

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#52

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.dk/2011/04/on-monet... Finally, we examine a new contender - the mysterious and awesome Bitcoin. I'll be frank with you, dear reader. When I came up with the MoMT, my first thought was: how can I, Mencius Moldbug, make some damned money from this? As system software is my first love, it was not that hard to think of an answer. In some ways Bitcoin is actually much better desig…

Bitcoin does not violate Mises' regression theorem because Mises never assumed objective definition of "utility". It is always subjective. And as such, Bitcoin was useful and fun for very early miners, then people started seeing that you can do much more with it, than just exchange.

See also: http://blog.oleganza.com/post/42262765318/direct-use-value-o...

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#53

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.dk/2011/04/on-monet... Finally, we examine a new contender - the mysterious and awesome Bitcoin. I'll be frank with you, dear reader. When I came up with the MoMT, my first thought was: how can I, Mencius Moldbug, make some damned money from this? As system software is my first love, it was not that hard to think of an answer. In some ways Bitcoin is actually much better desig…

"Bitcoin exchanges violate the critical know-your-customer rule"

Not any more. Bitcoin-central.net in France already has all the licenses for exchange and knows its customers. MtGox is moving USD operations to US with Coinlab.

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#54
post #12

If it ever becomes successful, we will marvel that individuals could ever afford a bitcoin. 21 million is a tiny number for a currency when compared to $40 trillion in global currency ($6000 per person). ~$1.25 billion spend on Cyber Monday ~$8 billion are traded for oil every day ~$150 billion NYSE daily If bitcoin became the trusted currency for any of these activities what would it be worth? If bitcoin became the…

This is the fundamental characteristic of bitcoin that puzzles me. Most currencies are inflationary, which in low doses is a good thing: it disincentivizes keeping the money under the mattress, maintaining a healthy flow of currency. Bitcoin is by design deflationary: it's value increases over time.

Deflation is destructive to the economy, so if bitcoin is deflationary by design, it can't ever be a primary currency, and thus it's expansion in usage is constrained from the get go.

Now, if you assume the market is smart, then there must be some other motive, other than usage, for appreciation. I suspect an artificial bubble.

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#55
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are no longer on the gold standard because the gold was confiscated under threat of 10 years in prison. Please explain how holding a piece of metal under mattress destroys someone else's wealth, so you can come to a person and extract gold by force. http://2012patriot.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/executive_ord...

When you have a growing economy but a fixed money supply, money will appreciate. When this happens, people will prefer to keep money rather than spend it, and you get deflation-induced recessions/depressions. See the latter part of the 19th century in the US for repeated examples of this.

It should be noted that other countries at the time had similar currency restrictions yet they didn't have the bank runs and depressions that the US had. Economists like Eugene White believe there were other, possibly even more influential, factors in those panics, like the branching restrictions, which made banks more fragile.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/04/eugene_white_on.htm...

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are no longer on the gold standard because the gold was confiscated under threat of 10 years in prison. Please explain how holding a piece of metal under mattress destroys someone else's wealth, so you can come to a person and extract gold by force. http://2012patriot.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/executive_ord...

> Please explain how holding a piece of metal under mattress destroys someone else's wealth Inflation creates a strong incentive to allocate capital to productive investments. Inflation decreases the value of a currency, and therefore people attempt to allocate capital to investments that appreciate above the rate of inflation. Without inflation there would be less incentive to fund new companies, lend money etc... G…

Do you have a single rational standard of what's "productive" and "not productive"? Should you have moral right to enforce this standard upon everyone around you? If millions of tourists make millions of pictures of Eiffel Tower an buy millions of cameras and iPhones for that - is it productive? Should they be prevented from buying cameras and instead "invest" money in something more "productive"?

My answer to everyone who thinks there is an objective distinction between productive and non-productive and advocates use of violence to redistribute resources: you are an egoistical immoral evil person who has no humility or interest in people around you. Instead of figuring out why people do what they do, you suggest pointing guns at them to do what you think is better for mysterious "society".

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#57

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.dk/2011/04/on-monet... Finally, we examine a new contender - the mysterious and awesome Bitcoin. I'll be frank with you, dear reader. When I came up with the MoMT, my first thought was: how can I, Mencius Moldbug, make some damned money from this? As system software is my first love, it was not that hard to think of an answer. In some ways Bitcoin is actually much better desig…

I thought the point of laundering was that yes, you can see where every individual bitcoin goes, but that when you put it through a "washing" service it then goes to people who are completely unrelated to whatever Pablo was doing. And Pablo gets money that was completely unrelated to what he was doing, probably at another account.

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#58
post #25
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory it can go 2-4 orders of magnitude higher. The value of all bitcoin now is about the value of a dozen tons of gold, or about 1% of the gold backing SPDR. Bitcoin is still minor-league, but it's knocking on the door of being significant. It will be interesting to see if any major governments freak out about bitcoin, or if any governments embrace it for, say, selling oil.

It's just a commodity, why would Governments freak out about a commodity? Whether or not bitcoins are currently in a commodity bubble or not is speculation, but bitcoins are no more a currency than Iron, Gold or Tulips are. In theory commodities can go to very high heights indeed.

"There are people on many sides who want Bitcoin to fail, and who will do anything to stop it from growing. The banks hate it, because it will disintermediate and replace their business. The Statists dont like it because it will defund their socialist dreams. The gold bugs loathe it because it is not gold. Keynesian journalists bristle at the fact that the money supply in Bitcoin is limited, and dream of seeing it destroyed."

Very interesting read[1] nonetheless.

[1] http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2875465&cid=40120...

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the fruit of your labor should be called saving, not hoarding.

Not when it's also the medium of exchange, and not when its got a fixed supply.

Used iPhones have some liquidity and a market price. Should I be forced to not hold mine for a very long time? At what point the good becomes a "medium of exchange" in your view, so you allow yourself using force to extract it?

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#60
post #10

I expect a correction soon, as It happened last year. I wouldnt invest now any dollar.

I think the problem is that there are a lot of people that are expecting a significant correction soon because of the earlier crash. I've been expecting drop since $20 threshold was broken. I'd say that when the correction comes, it will be 10-30%, but nothing like we saw in the past.
Post reply on HN