281–290 of 505 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the exchange allows international traders then the price will equalise with the rest of the world due to arbitrage.
Arbitrage here implies the ability to move money in or out of the country using ways other than bitcoin.
Actually, I have no idea whether there's any causality, and I certainly would not have predicted the effects to be felt today, as opposed to months later when a more mature margin system came into place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's until one-two major governments decides to make it illegal to deal in bit-coins that it's price will drop to zero. It doesn't matter if they can't enforce it 100% (or even 1%). What matters is that it will kill almost all opportunities to use it as regular money for legitimate purchases by major companies etc in the future. And that it could also land your ass in jail (with ISP monitoring and such being what it…
A vast number of major governments have made it illegal to trade in, for example, heroin. Just making something illegal doesn't necessarily stop trade.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the US dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the US Government Huh? What does this mean? This phrase can be applied to government bond ("The US gov't promises to pay you back") or to FDIC insurance ("The US gov't promises to refund your money if your bank closes"). But it doesn't have any meaning for dollars, unless it were to mean that the gov't would exchange it for gold, which of course is false.
Not true. The fact that you're somewhat informed on these matters is working against you here. If the US Gov't stopped collecting taxes -- or had some other substantial liquidity crisis -- the very real issue is debt service. Since the USD is the global reserve currency, we are in the rather unique situation of having our debt denominated in our own currency under control of our own central bank. This is where the "f…
So you're saying that "full faith and credit" just means "The gov't promises not to crazily inflate the money by printing lots of it". Fine. (That doesn't explain what process determines the street value, it just acknowledges that the government can destroy it.)
I don't really see how the rest of what you are talking about applies to my comment. Are you claiming that fiat currencies are impossible in countries without debt?
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
no, because throwing electrons at turds doesn't generate currency. in contrast, throwing electrons at a chip does generate bitcoins. that's the relationship being alluded to: there's the possibility of arbitrage between electricity (compute cycles) and currency.
So if something improbable or drastic happened tomorrow that made the currency not useful (e.g. governments outlawing it, a bug in the code) then the price would fall well below what it costs in electricity to mine it and the currency would become mostly defunct, i.e. it's intrinsic value plummeted because it's usefulness did.
tl;dr the intrinsic value is the usefulness of the currency not how many electrons you pump into it (though there is likely some corollary between them)
At this point I'm just flagging bitcoin price updates. We don't need these here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I'm going to start flagging them. Due to their volume they've become spam.
I think part of the issue is that it's kind of a slow news period right now. There are not a whole lot of really exciting other stories hitting HN's front page so far in April.
I understand a few Bitcoin posts. But there are a lot at the moment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true. The fact that you're somewhat informed on these matters is working against you here. If the US Gov't stopped collecting taxes -- or had some other substantial liquidity crisis -- the very real issue is debt service. Since the USD is the global reserve currency, we are in the rather unique situation of having our debt denominated in our own currency under control of our own central bank. This is where the "f…
That situation is not rather unique at all. Most developed nations issue debt in a currency controlled by their central bank, with the notable exception of the Eurozone.
Yes, every country CAN issue national debt. But issuing sovereign debt is more common largely because investors prefer it.
Either way, I didn't mean to sound misleading by calling it "rather unique." Thanks for helping me clarify.
