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For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

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Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#171

Post by sillysaurus3 »

baddox wrote: post #159
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no logic. Searching for logic behind bitcoin's price is a fool's errand. You'll trick yourself into believing things that aren't true, because the price of bitcoin is determined by a small number of large players. Those large players enter or exit the market for any reason they feel like. It's gambling, plain and simple. News announcements serve as a trigger for the gamblers to initiate gambles (exit/enter t…

> There is no logic. Searching for logic behind bitcoin's price is a fool's errand. The logic is that people (or algorithms that people put in control of their bitcoins) offered to sell bitcoins at a certain price, and other people (or algorithms) decided to accept that offer. One side decided that they prefer x USD to y bitcoins, and the other side decided that they prefer y bitcoins to x USD. So they agreed to swap…

people offered to sell bitcoins at a certain price, and other people decided to accept that offer. One side decided that they prefer x USD to y bitcoins, and the other side decided that they prefer y bitcoins to x USD. So they agreed to swap.

This is tautology, though. It's just the definition of a market.

The couple hundred I refer to are those who (a) have thousands of bitcoins, and (b) enter and exit the market with some frequency. Those are the people who determine the current price of bitcoin. I say there are only a few hundred of them because bitcoins have been distributed according to a power curve (as is all wealth), and those few hundred are the ones who have the temperament to wager large sums of money on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis.

When one of them decides to exit the market, the price drops noticeably. When one of them decides to jump back in, the price jumps noticeably, causing others to follow their lead and buy in, which drives up the price even more.

If you have currency equivalent to thousands of bitcoins, you can place a large buy order, which triggers a price spike, which causes some upwards "momentum" because a bunch of other people will feel pressured to enter the market due to your large buy order, which of course makes the price rise even more; hence, momentum. Gamblers with thousands of bitcoins can take advantage of this phenomenon to grow their holdings: place a large buy order, wait for others to follow your lead, then sell. It's obviously not guaranteed to work, but nonetheless that seems to be what these gamblers are doing.

Announcements serve to trigger a bunch of these "gambler whales" into action all at once, so you get large fluctuations in price. But there isn't a fundamental reason for this price drop beyond the game theory presented above. The claim that the price movement is based on underlying fundamentals or logic simply doesn't match the available evidence. Evidence thus far indicates that the price fluctuation is due to a combination of market manipulation and gamblers with thousands of bitcoins actively trying to hoodwink their fellow gamblers.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#172

Post by logicallee »

dllthomas wrote: post #155
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All very good points. The volatility is the greatest hindrance to it being a viable transaction system. I'm hopeful that well functioning derivatives (futures, options, etc) will help to stabilize the price (as is the purpose of a futures market); however, that would rely on the traders having effective forecasts on supply and demand which I view as unlikely. Related to that, I thought of an idea a while ago for a no…

I had some ideas for mechanisms to peg without centralization. I stalled out at the question of what to peg to ...

a basket of currencies (real-world ones backed by governments, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_basket , where the US dollar, pound sterling, etc, etc, all have a weighted percentage.)

but what on earth did you have in mind for a mechanism to do a peg without centralization?

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#173

Post by saraid216 »

slewis wrote: post #78
adwf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's just official government procedure. ie. You seized an asset, this is how you sell assets, therefore this is how you sell bitcoins.

Does the government sell seized USD?

The official stance of the US Government, at least the IRS, is that Bitcoin is property, not currency. Therefore what they seized was not currency, but property, and the correct procedure for property is to sell it by auction.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#174

Post by adamio »

0x0 wrote: post #141
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Donald Trump or Bill Gates have to shy away the fact that they have seemingly endless amounts of money?

Can you irrevocably transfer all their money in seconds to an anonymous & untouchable account by coercing them to give up, or hack in and steal, a private cryptokey consisting of a handful of bytes?

Well we know the US Government has them, so I presume they'd be a strong target now

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#175

Post by PeterisP »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #102
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am under the impression that they are auctioning off bitcoins that belonged to "The Silk Road" and not "Ross Ulbricht". There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the bitcoin sitting inside the silkroad wallets was free for the taking by U.S. authorities. Whether or not Ross Ulbricht's wealth is owed to the U.S. government they're not sure, so they're keeping them until the trial has completed.

I'm not sure they really belonged to The Silk Road. Didn't they really belong to the users, who had them on deposit on The Silk Road? I guess the law would see that as belonging to the business holding them, but I'm not sure that's morally correct.

First, this is explicitly unclaimed stuff; any who had a (in their mind) legitimate claim on those bitcoins had an option to claim [part of] them as their property; apparently noone did.

And if it's the property of Silk Road, then no matter what their deal was with the users, when it closes shop then the due process generally doesn't involve giving parts of their assets to users or creditors - the due process is to auction off those assets (as they're doing now) and settle those liabilities with US dollars; so again, people can claim that Silk Road owes them bitcoins, and they can get paid an appropriate share of this sale.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#176

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ThomPete wrote: post #122
Ologn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins are absolutely worthless. If there is any sign of a tech bubble, it is these worthless hashes that people pay hundreds of dollars for. One of the genius aspects of the Bitcoin scam is the limited output and increasing difficulty as it goes on. This keeps the scam going longer. If it were like tulip bulbs, or subprime real estate, or pets.com type stocks, the bubble would eventually burst. With the types of b…

I didn't downvote you because it's important that people realize why you are wrong. The value of any fiat, piece of gold, diamond etc isn't falsifiable either. You are assuming that other types of currency has inherent value. They don't.

Gold and diamonds have inherent value - they're both used industrially. Bitcoin perhaps doesn't have less inherent value than a non-backed currency though; but even being decades passed gold standard, and such, currencies that have a "reliable" government as support are still pretty reliable.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#177

Post by knz42 »

Ologn wrote: post #142
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The volatility in the bitcoin price just demonstrates how the majority of the people trading it have no conception of how to value the underlying asset (i.e. demand for a low cost transaction system) and thus it is speculators leading speculators a la the blind leading the blind. The current sharp price decrease is because people are worried that whoever wins this auction (and the subsequent auction of DPR's coins) w…

> no conception of how to value the underlying asset They have no conception of how to value the underlying asset because the underlying asset has absolutely no value. Bitcoin is one of the purest scams that has ever been conceived. Even subprime real estate, pets.com stock, dutch Tulip Bulbs etc. had some value. You're buying and selling a hash - a number. It's absolutely worthless. That people are being suckered in…

In all fairness, the paper on which $100 bills are printed is quite worthless as well.

I think ever since people have stopped using gold and silver bullion (after arrowheads and knives) as currency items, there has been this consensus that money has the value that people give to it, not the value of its material (or, in BTC's case, immaterial) representations.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#178

Post by baddox »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #171
baddox wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no logic. Searching for logic behind bitcoin's price is a fool's errand. The logic is that people (or algorithms that people put in control of their bitcoins) offered to sell bitcoins at a certain price, and other people (or algorithms) decided to accept that offer. One side decided that they prefer x USD to y bitcoins, and the other side decided that they prefer y bitcoins to x USD. So they agreed to swap…

people offered to sell bitcoins at a certain price, and other people decided to accept that offer. One side decided that they prefer x USD to y bitcoins, and the other side decided that they prefer y bitcoins to x USD. So they agreed to swap. This is tautology, though. It's just the definition of a market. The couple hundred I refer to are those who (a) have thousands of bitcoins, and (b) enter and exit the market wi…

Of course it's the definition of a market. Why is that a problem? Nothing in your comment contradicts what I said, although I don't agree with everyone you said.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#179

Post by saraid216 »

[deleted] wrote: post #149
Omniusaspirer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure one could possibly argue that this is morally or ethically "right". Legally it's apparently a-ok though. These coins were technically owned by all the people with accounts on the Silk Road and were not necessarily going to be used for illegal transactions. For all we know this is basically government stolen money from some guy who wanted to buy a sandwich with Bitcoin just for the laughs and to say he di…

[deleted]

> For the same reason I wouldn't hand anybody involved in illegal activity my wallet.

Well, let's not go that far. I'd totally give someone my wallet if they were pointing a loaded gun at my head. Ain't nothing in there worth dying for.

Re: For Sale: 29,656.51306529 Bitcoins

#180

Post by saraid216 »

davidgerard wrote: post #60
drcross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will only serve to legitimize bitcoin if anything causing a possible increase in price and won't directly affect the price through the sale.

* price goes up * price goes down * price stays the same * anything else happens "THIS IS GREAT NEWS FOR BITCOIN!!"

The market was written without break statements.

  switch(news) {
    case 'price goes up':
      theskyisfalling();
    case 'price goes down':
      thegroundisrising();
    case 'price stays the same':
      quicklookoverthere();
    default:
      celebrate();
  }
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