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I Bought a Bitcoin

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Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#31

Post by anigbrowl »

etherael wrote: post #26
bumbledraven wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[bitcoin] is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value No, bitcoin is different insofar as there is no powerful entity that taxes people and requires payment in bitcoin. This makes it even less valuable than currencies that DO have that feature.

That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.

That's not what he said. Also, you seem to think that monetary bases are something that exist independently of government.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#32

Post by guard-of-terra »

It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work, you need bank transfer, your funds can be frozen, you have to wait in line, etc, etc.

I live in Russia and it's amazingly easy. First, everyone here owns a virtual money account. It works like this: you put some money into it and then you can pay your bills (especially internet and mobile phone), small purchases over internet and you can donate it to other users of the system. It is denominated in fiat money and that's what you put in. On every corner there is a device with touchscreen that accepts cash.

And that's where it ends: you can buy bitcoins with virtual money at metabank.ru. It probably talks to mtgox, buys some bitcoin there for you and transfers is. There is no trading involved, you buy for whatever the price is. You can actually buy BTC with CC attached to virtual money account, exactly like PayPal works. The catch is 6% fee.

If you want to trade, you go to btc-e. It supports a plenty of ways to move money into and out of the system. Fees are like 2%.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#33

Post by etherael »

anigbrowl wrote: post #31
etherael wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.

That's not what he said. Also, you seem to think that monetary bases are something that exist independently of government.

Yes it is;

There is no powerful entity (violent extortionate power) that taxes people (engaged in parasitism) and requires payment in bitcoin. (the monetary base in question)

It's just in statist apologist clothing. Monetary bases exist on any money, whether that is government issued or otherwise, to insinuate otherwise is to imply that there is no money outside that issued by the state, and that has never been and is not the case.

I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exception been in strident and shrill defense of the state, but just stating you think differently and using this as evidence for calling your opinion as fact proves precisely nothing.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#34

Post by icebraining »

colwem wrote: post #24
wyager wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people are hoping that its USD rate climb to $1000 or even $1 million, which is pretty ridiculous. Is it really? Not too long ago, a Bitcoin was worth about $.0007. 130/.0007 = 185714 It's only four more orders of magnitude to get to the $1M range. I don't think it's going to happen, but it's not all that far-fetched.

Well right now the entire bitcoin economy is valued at $1.6B so if a bitcoin rises to $1M the bitcoin economy would reach $12.3T . I'm no economist but that seems like it might be an unrealistically huge percentage of the world economy. I really don't think there's enough investable money in the world to get there.

Actually a bit more, since more coins will be mined until then.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#35

Post by [deleted] »

rdtsc wrote: post #29
throwawayG9 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you even Bitcoin? One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority like a bank or government (ie: they can't steal from the people by printing money).

> Do you even Bitcoin? No but I lift, .... mostly functions, sometimes they have multiple variables ;-) > One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority Q: What can a central authority with power to imprison and/or garnish your wage manipulate? A: anything it damn wants. Yes the Fed Gov. can't print more bitcoin it sure can come after you with a rubber hose expecting to get…

[deleted]

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#36

Post by icebraining »

rdtsc wrote: post #29
throwawayG9 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you even Bitcoin? One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority like a bank or government (ie: they can't steal from the people by printing money).

> Do you even Bitcoin? No but I lift, .... mostly functions, sometimes they have multiple variables ;-) > One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority Q: What can a central authority with power to imprison and/or garnish your wage manipulate? A: anything it damn wants. Yes the Fed Gov. can't print more bitcoin it sure can come after you with a rubber hose expecting to get…

By themselves, laws don't prevent actions (see copyright infringement), you need enforcement, and if a very large fraction of the population starts using Bitcoins, it can be very hard to stop, at least without taking some very drastic measures.

My guess is that the US government would just get enough computing power to control the network and prevent it from working well.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#37

Post by davidjohnstone »

icebraining wrote: post #34
colwem wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well right now the entire bitcoin economy is valued at $1.6B so if a bitcoin rises to $1M the bitcoin economy would reach $12.3T . I'm no economist but that seems like it might be an unrealistically huge percentage of the world economy. I really don't think there's enough investable money in the world to get there.

Actually a bit more, since more coins will be mined until then.

There are about 11 million Bitcoins in existence now[1], so if they were worth one million dollars each, the Bitcoin economy would be worth 11 trillion dollars now. We're already halfway through mining all the Bitcoins that will ever be mined, so that doesn't affect the numbers massively (it'll be a 21 trillion dollar economy).

Apparently[2] there are about ten trillion US dollars in existence, and I'm not enough of a Bitcoin believer to expect the Bitcoin economy to approach that amount.

1. http://bitcoinwatch.com/

2. http://money.howstuffworks.com/how-much-money-is-in-the-worl...

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#38

Post by contingencies »

etherael wrote: post #26
bumbledraven wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[bitcoin] is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value No, bitcoin is different insofar as there is no powerful entity that taxes people and requires payment in bitcoin. This makes it even less valuable than currencies that DO have that feature.

That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.

To be fair, it is a historically significant motivator in the adoption of new centralized currencies.

On the balance, however, we are shifting away from that with globalization and the ridiculous logistical requirements of such an approach (eg. every new US president doesn't de-circulate, debase and re-issue USD.)

These days, as long as you have liquidity that allows money to viably function as one or more of a medium of exchange ("settlement system"); a unit of account ("accountable asset"); and a store of value ("somewhere to stash accrued value"), then you're doing OK. Bitcoin has the former two properties and seems to be doing OK in the latter category despite volatility, despite relatively narrow acceptance.

Digital currencies and settlement systems as a whole will undoubtedly continue the trend that Bitcoin has started; the genie is so far out of the bottle at this point it's almost entering the third-stage of truth: self-evidence.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#39

Post by viraptor »

mistercow wrote: post #10
paulhodge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just want to dip your toes in the water, you could always start mining. Doesn't take any initial investment or bank information or anything like that, just processing power.

Aren't the odds of making a single bitcoin as a lone miner, with an ordinary computer, over any sane period of time pretty microscopic at this point? To make any money that way, you'd need to join a mining pool, and at that point you're not really just dipping your toes in the water anymore.

Alternatively you can start mining litecoin and exchange it at btc-e. Or join a pool in either btc or ltc mining.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#40

Post by haakon »

ihsw wrote: post #7
account_taken wrote: post #5

Not sure if Bitcoins are a good investment. All it takes is a western country (say Switzerland) to create an online currency and Bitcoins will sink faster than a Carnival ship.

The Royal Canadian Mint developed MintChip[1] however there has been little interest. There's a scathing Forbes blog post[2] too, if you're interested. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintChip [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/04/12/mintchip-m...

Note, however, that the "scathing Forbes blog post" was written by the Bitcoin Foundation's press secretary.
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