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Bitcoin falls from $266

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Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#181

Post by sliverstorm »

aarongolliver wrote: post #154
sliverstorm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't an intrinsic value. Waste heat does not have an intrinsic value equivalent to the cost of producing it- it is waste heat. Intrinsic value is derived from what you can do with something, not what you did to get it.

The intrinsic value is the bitcoin protocol which provides a framework where transactions become effectively irreversible in about an hour, you don't have to go through a middle-man to pay someone, and it provides anonymity if you need it.

Not sure you can consider that an intrinsic value. I could be wrong, but my understanding of intrinsic value is essentially that it is the value of an item when the market value is zero. The bitcoin protocol does you no good if the market value of a bitcoin is zero.

You do present an interesting conundrum though.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#182

Post by sliverstorm »

dubfan wrote: post #179
dia80 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The attackers unload their bitcoin before the price gets smashed and presumably buy it all back again from frightened speculators. If anything it might be a positive sign for bitcoin that the attackers are keen to acquire it! On another note, mtgox.com the main…

Do you have any evidence at all of a coordinated attack against Bitcoin, or is this just an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?

Do you even have to ask?

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#183

Post by jelled »

ghshephard wrote: post #175
sneak wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing like this has ever happened in it's history Completely false. The curve mirrors the speculative run-up from $0.50 to $30 pretty closely... the LAST time bitcoin's market scaled an order of magnitude. It's happened before. It will happen again.

I stand corrected - this has happened once before in Bitcoin's history, so apparently there have been two times in which Bitcoin price changes have been suitable HN fodder. Though, now, it's a $1B+ valuation and in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/business/media/04link.html...

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#184

Post by DanBC »

mattmaroon wrote: post #150
motti_s wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that HN has a built-in mechanism for determining what's interesting to its users. If a Bitcoin related story gets voted up to appear in the top page every day, then maybe it should be there.

No, there aren't downvotes. If 20% of users really love something, and 80% hate it (assuming they only use flagging for spam) it will still keep making the top page.

The guidelines suggest that people flag for spam or off-topic:

> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

Some people (but not me) flag all Bitcoin articles. Other people appear to flag many of them.

Bitcoin is fascinating. Lots of the technical stuff is poorly understood. Lots of the economics stuff is poorly understood. Unfortunately most of the threads are more heat than light, so I understand why people do flag Bitcoin threads.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#185

Post by nwatson »

jjcm wrote: post #126
tptacek wrote: post #21

Don't worry! It won't ever fall below its intrinsic value!

In some ways the price is tied to the cost of electricity needed to mine a coin. Granted, the mining "price" is usually about two weeks behind the actual price, and the electricity required is variable based on the current sum of computational power being used by all the miners, so there's certainly some disconnect.

So if I shock a turd with a thousand dollars worth of electricity from my electric utility company, can I sell it for $1,000? Or add some non-intrinsic worth by calling it "art" and sell it for $2,000? Actually, make those figures $1,010 and $2,010 -- my turds also have intrinsic value.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#186

Post by craigyk »

HILARIOUS.

Note: I think Bitcoin is a cool idea, and a cool implementation, but I've recently noticed it tends to create zealots who spew crazy whenever there is an article that questions its suitability for specific purposes (gold alternative, replace the US dollar, etc.)

From what I can tell, its the same type of people I used to associate with libertarian+goldbugs+ronpaul, for whom 'fiat' is the worst four-letter word in the English language.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#187

Post by DanBC »

dubfan wrote: post #179
dia80 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The attackers unload their bitcoin before the price gets smashed and presumably buy it all back again from frightened speculators. If anything it might be a positive sign for bitcoin that the attackers are keen to acquire it! On another note, mtgox.com the main…

Do you have any evidence at all of a coordinated attack against Bitcoin, or is this just an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?

Don't the DDoS attacks count as evidence?

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#188

Post by eksith »

niggler wrote: post #172
eksith wrote: post #146

BTC crashed primarily because the market suddenly got flooded by Bitcoinbillionaire : http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/bitcoin-crashes-losi... This bares repeating... The value of BTC is in the nature of the transaction; not the currency itself. People have turned BTC into a commodity instead of actually bloody spending it. Their old fashioned thinking still ties it to traditional fiat like a smoker trying to…

Who is satoshi nakamoto?

He's the Yamaga Soko of modern digital currency. Basically wrote the book on the first plausibly practical means of exchanging currency for services and the edicts of transactions.

Also, I hear he plays a mean banjo.

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#189

Post by brador »

BrianEatWorld wrote: post #140
napoleoncomplex wrote: post #125

Not that I'd wish monetary loss on anyone, but if the first Bitcoin crash is any indication, these things tend to have a positive side-benefit of driving out most of the speculators flooding in after all the news reports that fuel these cycles, and the people actually interested in the currency itself stay behind, with an influx of new folk. After all the noise dies down, new businesses and services get built backed…

Anecdotally, I have been waiting for prices to fall because I was looking to actually use some btc starting a month ago, but because Im planning on using a tumbler, I was afraid of where the price might be in a week.

What is a tumbler?

Re: Bitcoin falls from $266

#190

Post by pseudonym »

dubfan wrote: post #179
dia80 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary this is just the most pronounced in a series of recent coordinated DDOS / aggressive selling attacks designed to (successfully) inspire panic. The attackers unload their bitcoin before the price gets smashed and presumably buy it all back again from frightened speculators. If anything it might be a positive sign for bitcoin that the attackers are keen to acquire it! On another note, mtgox.com the main…

Do you have any evidence at all of a coordinated attack against Bitcoin, or is this just an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?

I think there's a lot of people who bought in during the last week or two that really want it to turn out to be an "attack". I haven't seen any actual stats or indication that that's actually the case, though.

Likewise, Mt. Gox made mention of "Being DDOS'd" at certain points, but I'm a little skeptical of the claim given that their own charts show a huge jump in trade volume at around the same time.

So no, there's no real "proof" yet of it being a DDOS or just lots of panicked traders, just lots of speculation (heh, heh).

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