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Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

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Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#91

Post by jacoblyles »

tocomment wrote: post #57
wmf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin micropayments are possible if you can solve the UX issues (copying and pasting addresses, etc.) and if you can avoid "recommended" transaction fees that are currently near 5 US cents.

I don't get the recommended transaction fee thing. What happens if someone pays 1 cent? Will no one process it?

Not much. I saw a graph recently of fee paid to confirmation time. There was no correlation.

Eventually it will matter when mining dries up. There will need to be "transaction exchanges". Personally, I am designing a coin that never mines out, because I believe it to be a superior design.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#92

Post by dreamdu5t »

Taylorious wrote: post #37
aneth4 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're totally right. The world is not ready, just like it wasn't ready for e-commerce in 1996. I mean, who's going to put their credit card online? Who wants to buy stuff without feeling it? BitCoin may always be more volatile than other currencies. That doesn't actually matter much as long as it's liquid with other commodities and currencies. Its primary purpose is transfer, not store value. It will however stabili…

I think eCommerce was a different situation than what you describe. People were already used to calling up and ordering things over the phone from a catalog using their credit card. Doing the same thing over the internet wasn't that much of a stretch.

Uhhh... if you were around in the 90s everyone said "nobody will buy stuff online". Everyone. News articles, talking heads, books, etc. People scoffed at sites like eBay even years after it's launch.

It was very comparable to bitcoin. Everybody has been complaining about bitcoin while the entire time it's been growing and growing and growing. It's still growing and people are still acting as if it's nothing.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#93

Post by VMG »

tocomment wrote: post #57
wmf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin micropayments are possible if you can solve the UX issues (copying and pasting addresses, etc.) and if you can avoid "recommended" transaction fees that are currently near 5 US cents.

I don't get the recommended transaction fee thing. What happens if someone pays 1 cent? Will no one process it?

More detail: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104939.msg1148889#ms...

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#94

Post by paulhauggis »

cs702 wrote: post #35

As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc. This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting ex…

"As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc."

So you're okay with a currency that has shifted a huge portion of its value in a day and insecure exchange after insecure exchange getting hacked (and thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin getting stolen)?

Right now, Bitcoin is like the stock market before it had any regulations. I feel like the people that tell me not to worry about these issues are the ones that invested lots of money in it (and don't want to lose it).

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#95

Post by eric_bullington »

waffle_ss wrote: post #47
cs702 wrote: post #35

As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc. This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting ex…

There are some real concerns with Bitcoin. For example, I was going to write an app that accepts Bitcoins as payment. However, the problem is that the amount of time it takes for a transaction to become "verified," i.e. be part of the official block chain, can take up to 10 minutes. What am I supposed to present to the user during this time? Am I supposed to tell them that their payment may or may not have been accep…

The way I see things shaping up is that Bitcoin will be used as a virtual store of value, used to transfer money to one or more other virtual currencies that place a higher premium on transaction speed. Ripple.com could fill this role, or it may be another virtual currency that has yet to be invented. It is incredibly easy to transfer money from Bitcoin to Ripple (and vice versa) once you know how, and any other virtual currency would doubtless share this characteristic. As the Bitcoin "market cap" grows, it will become much less volatile, but will likely continue to increase in value.

Actual Bitcoin transactions on the block chain would only be used to refill the other currency for day-to-day transactions, or for large transactions that don't have to be instant, like buying a car or a house.

Disclaimer: I own Bitcoins.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#96

Post by cadetzero »

mrkmcknz wrote: post #17

I want to be able to get behind Bitcoin I really do. I just don't understand the purpose it serves. As an asset class it's far too volatile even for someone who plays naked options. Imagine putting $10,000 into an asset class that swings 20-30% daily on a regular basis. Trading curbs eat your heart out. As a currency it's too impractical and there are serious hurdles involved with turning central bank currency into B…

>As an asset class it's far too volatile

Volatile, sure. Depends if you want to invest long term with it, and you understand the risk.

> As a currency it's too impractical and there are serious hurdles involved with turning central bank currency into Bitcoin and vice versa.

I found it pretty easy. Coinbase was lovely; getting verified on Mt Gox was a bit of a pain.

> We think Wall Street plays a rigged game.

Yeah, because it does. On a personal level I find the finance industry as a whole too difficult to gain any insight in to. I wouldn't know if my bank was collapsing or not, or if the housing market was in a true bubble. I can fully understand bitcoin. Maybe it's a false sense of safety, but I don't think it is.

> worry a Government or a big bank they'll simply manipulate the market.

Possible. We'll see how it plays out.

Most importantly though,

>I just don't understand the purpose it serves.

Very low fee, near-instant, world-wide monetary transfers. It serves a purpose.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#97

Post by Guvante »

femto113 wrote: post #66

Seems like using Amazon's EC2 to mine Bitcoins could now be profitable, anyone know if this is actually going on? Per this couple year old article ( http://glennfrancismurray.com/cost-defective-mining-with-gpu... ) looks like the break even point was around ~$30/BTC.

The problem is you have to account for the difficulty, which has changed. It looks like he was predicting a block per 78 hours, while it is now closer to 2/3 of a year.

Looks like 1.64 GH/s = $10.66 a day roughly, compared to a cost of $400 a day.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#98

Post by benwoody »

jacoblyles wrote: post #88
niggler wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an opportunity for a "bitcoin credit card" or "bitcoin charge card" where a trusted third party maintains complete control.

More people should implement and accept Green Addresses[1], and that would largely solve the issue. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Green_address

I'm really rooting for Coinbase to take off. I hope they implement this, as well as a better iOS app.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#99

Post by cadetzero »

gyom wrote: post #45
reaclmbs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, let's play a game. Say you had $5mm. How would you manipulate the Bitcoin market and earn a guaranteed return?

My first idea would be to see if it's possible to create massive sell-offs by crashing through many people's "stop on loss" barriers. For example, let's say that the exchange rate is 100 USD per bitcoin at the moment and that you have tons of people who would absolutely sell their bitcoins if it went below 90. I'm not in the bitcoin game, but I think mtgox offers "stop on loss" features so that people could get out o…

Oh, this literally happened yesterday.

Someone sold off 5k bitcoins (~USD $450k at the time).

That's exactly what happened. Big sell off from 95 to 80ish, and then it sprang back to ~$90 today.

There's low confidence in it right now, but that's because most players are actual players. They aren't using bitcoins for groceries, like a bank reserve (yet). They're playing them like stocks.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#100

Post by cadetzero »

blocktuw wrote: post #81
zalzane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A government entity looking to destroy the market wouldn't necessarily care about getting a return. Even if they were, take a look at what happened yesterday when someone dumped 5k bitcoins onto mtgox. http://i.imgur.com/K8T4F0Y.png

This is excellent. Any explanation to accompany the graph? How about a link to the source?

Source, on the whole, is http://bitcoincharts.com/ You can break down all the numbers yourself. You can also get a giant history table of all buy/sells with times from either bitcoinity or bitcoin charts, I forget which.
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