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However, the author rather fails to explain his reasoning about the social entanglement of money, referring us instead to a book which is £10.34 in paperback or £9.31 on Kindle[1] (a rather uneconomic proposition, if you ask me.)
[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debt-The-First-000-Years-ebook/dp/B0...
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Woo, bacon lollipops, server hosting, and pizza. Truly the essentials. You need grocery stores, gas stations, clothing stores, and restaurants to start accepting it. Until then, it's really just a novelty for middle class college Libertarians.
I love saying this: Do you think that cryptocurrencies spring fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus?
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> Bitcoins are a currency, there's no need to convert them Yes, unless you want to, you know, buy something...
I suppose there's nothing I'd ever want to buy from one of the merchants advertising here: http://www.bitcoinblackfriday.com/
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> Bitcoins are a currency, there's no need to convert them Yes, unless you want to, you know, buy something...
Many businesses accept Bitcoins as payment for physical things. The last Bitcoin meetup that I went to was at a bar/grill that accepts BTC as payment. Most of the attendees paid for their drinks with Bitcoin. You don't need to convert to cash in order to buy things with Bitcoin.
That bar/grill is a novelty -- and it probably only accepted BTC in the first place because there was a BTC EVENT held at it.
"After all, no bank or bitcoin-emitter can be as public-minded as a government..." Ahem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe You can't slap a sticker saying "public-minded!" on a government, and expect it to therefore be public-minded, any more than you can slap an "environmentally friendly!" sticker on a coal power plant and expect it to stop polluting. "What kind of role, if any, should a govern…
Lots of countries have explicitely recognized that putting control of the money in the hands of public-minded government is often horrible idea. Those countries created separate institutions that are responsible only for keeping value of money stable by regulating its supply. They don't care about what public or government wants. They don't care what effects on the economy will their decissions have. They just have to keep inflation around 2-3% by adjusting rates.
USA money controller for some reason has to support the economy with their decissions. The only reason they get away with it without hiperinflation so far is because dollar is strongly tied to the oil and because USA after the WWII had thriving economy, not economical wasteland like almost all other countries that took part in the war.
Disclaimer right up front: I personally doubt that Bitcoin will be a long-term success. I fall into the camp of people who believe it is not a mature enough technology, unproven despite the hype. It is much too volatile to be any good other than as a risky investment, though if you time it right, you could stand to make a fair profit at the moment. What I do think is very interesting about Bitcoin is that it is a har…
With such a sensationalist title, I'm not surprised this article is much balooney but I wonder how it got to HN frontpage in the first place.
My prediction is that bitcoins are midway through a short-lived bubble and then rapidly fall to approximately 0, and in a few years people will look back with the disbelief now reserved for pets.com. The hype - get in right now and get rich, or you'll miss out and kick yourself - reminds me of 1999. My in-laws were talking about bitcoins yesterday, so bitcoins are getting the attention of the public at large; I take…
Would you abandon your investment into lcd manufacturers bacause your in-laws started talking about those thin TVs?
Would your grand grand ancestor abandon his investment in railroad comapnies if his in-laws started talking about this strange horseless carriage that can only travel on pair of metal rods placed on the ground?