Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 205 posts

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#101

Post by waterlesscloud »

zalzane wrote: post #29
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?

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

The mini-crash yesterday was interesting. The 5k dump itself only moved the price down a couple of dollars, but there was a mass movement of smaller transactions that followed it and caused the price to really drop.

My personal (amateur) theory is that people were hovering over their "sell" buttons, looking to cash out as we approach the landmark $100 point. Once they thought someone with a lot of coins was bailing, they took that as a sign to head for the exit.

I also think that MtGox's horrible lag factors into the dips. Their trading engine was running as much as 8 minutes behind during this event, which causes people to not be able to modify or place orders. Along with not being able to see actual "current" trading info, this causes a certain segment of the trading population to go into full panic mode.

Placing market sell orders in an engine that's showing you ancient data during a crash seems suicidal, but for some reason people do it.

I'd love to see Gox upgrade its engine. I honestly think it would make a notable difference in price stability.

Even better, I'd like to see the market grow strong enough to support 3 or 4 primary trading sites. There are a number of others now, but the rest have such low volume that you should only use them to pursue specific opportunities (arbitrage).

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#102

Post by cadetzero »

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.

That's about to be a total non-factor once all the ASICs online. http://launch.avalon-asics.com/ and http://www.butterflylabs.com/

The hash rates are order of magnitude faster than what's currently out there for the price, and most importantly they'll drive up the difficulty quite a bit.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#103

Post by BrokenPipe »

pilgrim689 wrote: post #62
tocomment wrote: post #42

One thing that hit me recently on bitcoin is I realized that for the first time in history micropayments are 100% possible. I'm thinking all kinds of startups should spring up from that, but I haven't thought of any yet. What are your thoughts?

yep, people are already doing micropayments on reddit. See http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip and http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin . Basically, you can do "tip $0.50" on reddit and a bot will parse your comment and process the transaction.

it's amazing. I got tipped a few month ago something like $2 and it is now $6.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#104

Post by paulhodge »

reaclmbs wrote: post #20
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…

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

Personally I would just fabricate a very intelligent-sounding report where I claim to have found a serious, exploitable flaw in Bitcoin's encryption. I don't think it would be too hard to convince people, because many people expect that something like this might happen. And if the fabrication is good enough then it'll take days or weeks for researchers to fully evaluate the claim. In the meantime the uninformed panic causes a price dip and I buy a bunch of cheap coins.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#105

Post by BrokenPipe »

jacoblyles wrote: post #91
tocomment wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

an inflating currency ? Why would I ever get into it if my government wasn't to force me like they did in the states before it was backed by gold ?

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#106

Post by BrokenPipe »

eric_bullington wrote: post #40
tocomment wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not getting an intuitive grasp on what the days destroyed tells you? Is it how many people are holding bitcoins? What does a higher number mean, what does a lower number mean?

You're absolutely right, Bitcoin Days Destroyed only indirectly tells us about transaction volume. What it's trying to measure is the amount of "hoarding" occurring in the Bitcoin economy. More BDD suggests less hoarding. So it looks like people are spending their Bitcoins more and more.

well there are more and more ways to spend them. in the usa soon you'll be able to pay for city services and you can already top up your phone worldwide as well as pay electricity in southafrica. You can buy stuff over amazon or with bitspend anywhere else.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#107

Post by BrokenPipe »

wmf wrote: post #55
tocomment wrote: post #42

One thing that hit me recently on bitcoin is I realized that for the first time in history micropayments are 100% possible. I'm thinking all kinds of startups should spring up from that, but I haven't thought of any yet. What are your thoughts?

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.

fees are being adjusted as we speak (at least the default) but you should know that the fee is optional

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#108

Post by baddox »

dragontamer wrote: post #68
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.

These already exist. The problem is that all the advantages of Bitcoin is now lost, and you have transferred control of Bitcoin to the Bitcoin bank. For example: you can gather Flexcoins, which allow instantaneous transfers and so forth. But by doing so, you no longer have Bitcoins. You only have Flexcoins, and if the Flexcoin bank goes under... you lose all of your bitcoins. IE: Using Flexcoins (or any other form of…

> The problem is that all the advantages of Bitcoin is now lost, and you have transferred control of Bitcoin to the Bitcoin bank.

That isn't a loss of the advantages of bitcoin, because you got to choose which organization to trust, if any. With government currencies, you don't get to choose.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#109

Post by 3am »

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…

Money itself is not a good asset. I don't understand the point of excessive cash savings - cash is a vehicle for trade and transfer assets, not an asset in and of itself. Ie, if I have leftover money, I will put it in investment funds that purchase ownership stakes in companies (stocks), loans it to borrowers (bonds), or pay off my mortgage (real estate). Even gold or other precious metals. I try to keep a conservative amount to cover cash flow requirements, but honestly I don't understand hoarding Bitcoins any more than hoarding US Dollars. Neither makes any sense or represents anything of value.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#110

Post by dragontamer »

baddox wrote: post #108
dragontamer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These already exist. The problem is that all the advantages of Bitcoin is now lost, and you have transferred control of Bitcoin to the Bitcoin bank. For example: you can gather Flexcoins, which allow instantaneous transfers and so forth. But by doing so, you no longer have Bitcoins. You only have Flexcoins, and if the Flexcoin bank goes under... you lose all of your bitcoins. IE: Using Flexcoins (or any other form of…

> The problem is that all the advantages of Bitcoin is now lost, and you have transferred control of Bitcoin to the Bitcoin bank. That isn't a loss of the advantages of bitcoin, because you got to choose which organization to trust, if any. With government currencies, you don't get to choose.

What is preventing me from converting my USD into Euros or Yen? I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best.
Post reply on HN