Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#51

Post by rglullis » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:13 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #30

jaequery wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bitcoin will be on your mind the next time you want to send/receive money oversees, i guarantee you that.

This is true for 0.02 % of the world's population, at best. (This is more than the estimated number of people owning Bitcoins, like it or not.)

25 years ago, the same could be said of international phone calls.

The world is getting smaller and smaller, there will be a point in the future where getting goods/services from someone across the ocean is as common as sending an email.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#52

Post by TheEzEzz » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:14 PM UTC

My working hypothesis is that this is the market impact of the liquidation of Hal Finney's bitcoin estate. If true, due to the thinness of the market and the large size of Hal's holdings, the price has a long way to go.

(Full disclosure: this is pure rumor mongering.)

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#53

Post by skrebbel » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

gatsby wrote: post #47

iowai wrote: post #14

I once was an intern in a venture capital funded startup where the CEO decided to hold most of the companies cash in Bitcoin. I think it was in early 2014 or so, when the price fell like mad and he was in deep shit. Im not sure if anybody up to that date knew about the Bitcoin investment. He was a nervous wreck. Close to suicide. For about a week, he brought a stuffed animal into the office every day. And carried it…

Sorry, calling bs on this. Your last four comments all start with "I once was an intern" - and my guess is that's why your alias is "I.o.w.a.i." Did all this stuff really happen? And to you? Because from your past comments, you were an intern in the "golden 90's" and in this scenario, in 2014.

Haha, great find :-)

They're all very good stories! Keep them coming, iowai.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#54

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

gatsby wrote: post #47

iowai wrote: post #14

I once was an intern in a venture capital funded startup where the CEO decided to hold most of the companies cash in Bitcoin. I think it was in early 2014 or so, when the price fell like mad and he was in deep shit. Im not sure if anybody up to that date knew about the Bitcoin investment. He was a nervous wreck. Close to suicide. For about a week, he brought a stuffed animal into the office every day. And carried it…

Sorry, calling bs on this. Your last four comments all start with "I once was an intern" - and my guess is that's why your alias is "I.o.w.a.i." Did all this stuff really happen? And to you? Because from your past comments, you were an intern in the "golden 90's" and in this scenario, in 2014.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#55

Post by forthefuture » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:20 PM UTC

So to even buy bitcoin you have to do with money what you would do on any site to buy anything else. Why would you ever turn your money into bitcoins to do that? It's easy to say now, "oh bitcoin will never work" because it's tanking, but can anyone explain any practical use whatsoever for this monopoly money? Do people really expect companies to start paying people in marbles and tops cards or is this as straightforward as it seems?

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#56

Post by Estragon » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:21 PM UTC

forthefuture wrote: post #55

So to even buy bitcoin you have to do with money what you would do on any site to buy anything else. Why would you ever turn your money into bitcoins to do that? It's easy to say now, "oh bitcoin will never work" because it's tanking, but can anyone explain any practical use whatsoever for this monopoly money? Do people really expect companies to start paying people in marbles and tops cards or is this as straightfor…

Escrowed transactions are far easier cheaper than in USD.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#57

Post by Aqueous » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #29

The easier it gets to buy Bitcoin, and accept Bitcoin, the worse it will be. Even if you wanted to spend Bitcoin, you had to think ahead. Now Circle lets you buy within minutes (in most cases) of setting up your account. On the other side of things, Bitpay and Coinbase let merchants convert back to USD (or other currency) right away. So it's possible to do "just in time Bitcoin": Bitcoin is merely the payment protoco…

That's not true at all. The need to convert to dollars is present only most assets are denominated in dollars, taxes are paid in dollars, and our basic needs are paid for in dollars. What happens when vendor adoption expands to the point where you can buy enough from vendors - food, clothing, housing - with BitCoin that it is no longer absolutely necessary to convert to dollars, because you can subsist entirely on BitCoin?

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#58

Post by shuska » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:25 PM UTC

forthefuture wrote: post #55

So to even buy bitcoin you have to do with money what you would do on any site to buy anything else. Why would you ever turn your money into bitcoins to do that? It's easy to say now, "oh bitcoin will never work" because it's tanking, but can anyone explain any practical use whatsoever for this monopoly money? Do people really expect companies to start paying people in marbles and tops cards or is this as straightfor…

I'm not an expert on it by any means, but from what I understand just the technology behind the blockchain (essentially how the entire network works) is what is really valuable with Bitcoin. Bitcoin does have some practical uses - I've heard of people transferring money between countries/across the world with little to no fees as an example. It's basically a way to get around banks being difficult/charging ridiculous amounts of money for transfers. The point is not to store all your cash in the form of bitcoin, but rather transfer it to bitcoin when you need to buy something. There's some people who put their savings into bitcoin which is really dumb.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#59

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:25 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #29

The easier it gets to buy Bitcoin, and accept Bitcoin, the worse it will be. Even if you wanted to spend Bitcoin, you had to think ahead. Now Circle lets you buy within minutes (in most cases) of setting up your account. On the other side of things, Bitpay and Coinbase let merchants convert back to USD (or other currency) right away. So it's possible to do "just in time Bitcoin": Bitcoin is merely the payment protoco…

The price can't be irrelevant, miners are going to change their activity based on it.

It also doesn't make so much sense that companies helping people complete transactions in situations where traditional methods are expensive/slow/regulated will successfully continue to avoid regulation or bother to give miners a share.

Re: Bitcoin falls below $300, lowest in 11 months

#60

Post by danbruc » Sun, Oct 05, 2014, 7:26 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #51

danbruc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for 0.02 % of the world's population, at best. (This is more than the estimated number of people owning Bitcoins, like it or not.)

25 years ago, the same could be said of international phone calls. The world is getting smaller and smaller, there will be a point in the future where getting goods/services from someone across the ocean is as common as sending an email.

And I can already pay for this with my credit card today.