Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180 • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#341

Post by avasdvasdv » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 12:39 AM UTC

jasonisalive wrote: post #181

sqrt17 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to be cynical about this, but: You want nice things, not bitcoins and not dollars. Currently, more market actors accept dollars (or Euros, or JPY, or UKP) than bitcoin, hence you're closer to the things you desire if you have dollar liquidity than if you have bitcoin liquidity. Investments, on the other hand, should be neither in dollars nor in bitcoins, because dollars have inflation and bitcoin is too vo…

If you truly believe in Bitcoin, you believe that a) there is a good chance that in the future USD, JPY, EU, UKP et al. will be worthless relics, ornaments in a history museum that schoolchildren laugh and joke about and b) that the world would be a massively, massively better place if a) were to eventuate. Your job is to buy as much Bitcoin as you can as cheaply as possible, cross your fingers and try and do whateve…

> If you truly believe in Bitcoin, you believe that a) there is a good chance that in the future USD, JPY, EU, UKP et al. will be worthless relics

"believe"? You sound like a cult member. There is 0% chance that the world currencies will disappear anytime soon. If it did, bitcoins would be worth nothing anyways.

> will be worthless relics, ornaments in a history museum that schoolchildren laugh and joke

I think you are describing bitcoins...

The pathetic desperation of bitcoin fanatics like you is laughable. It's like listening to a retarded islamist.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#342

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 1:02 AM UTC

salibhai wrote: post #312

ekianjo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually I find the problem of stashing gold very tricky. This, and plus the fact that in almost every country on Earth now, buying Gold needs an ID of some sort so that governments know exactly where to look for Gold the day they want to seize it. I think one of the last places where you can buy Gold anonymously is Switzerland. EDIT: and you have to trust that the Gold you buy is real. There's always the risk it's…

They sell gold on ebay and in most jewelry stores you can buy 24k jewelry which is almost pure

> ebay

Same thing, how do you ensure the Gold is authentic ?

> jewelry stores

That is true, but you won't buy Gold at a good price in this way, there is a premium on jewelry versus gold coins in weight, for example.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#343

Post by sanswork » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 2:23 AM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #338

sanswork wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't base it off price, I base it off adaption and public interest of which outside of new merchants there has been no indication of any growth(and I'm pretty sure if you started subtracting merchants who no longer take it or who don't have their staff trained on it it would be shrinking as well). Bitpay has shown now growth in processing numbers($1m/per day) for almost all of 2014. Transaction volume is a ridicul…

Luckily though we have the internet now which has accelerated the spread of new ideas and products on it. We're not dealing with a pre-internet world anymore so comparing them is silly. I think you don't understand. People had no need of the Internet until applications such as online banking, online shopping etc were available to them. They didn't come pre installed on the Internet and whilst they wrre being develope…

I don't think you understand. Before the internet ideas took longer to spread as it was more difficult to disseminate information to people. Now it is incredibly easy which is why new technologies and services have increased adoption rates.

Bitcoin doesn't have that because most people don't care about what it does better and do care about what it does worse.

6 years into the experiment including an entire year regularly in the news and still almost no one cares and the userbase appears to have actually shrunk this year from an estimated peak of ~1-2m to an estimated 500k. And even that 500k is considered generous.

>Your mum and dad only got it when it had already become a mature technology.

I appreciate your condescending tone and trying to imply that I'm a child. But I've been on the internet and programming since 95 and while far from the earliest user I was a lot closer to them than most people. I'm well aware of days when online banking wasn't a common thing. And the fact that the idea of it and online shopping didn't spread fast because we were largely in the pre-internet(it existed but had limited adoption) world then.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#344

Post by CyberDildonics » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 2:27 AM UTC

chuckkir wrote: post #336

CyberDildonics wrote: post #324

It seems that most people still don't fully grasp why bitcoin is valuable or for that matter why fiat or gold are valuable. The best explanation I've seen is actually the series of slide the Winklvoss twins put together (when they were taking a break from creeping everyone out). https://winklevosscapital.com/value-investors-congress-prese...

I was hopeful, but it doesn't explain why gold has value. It just starts with the assumption that it does. I'm afraid that sooner or later folks will realize it's just a shiny metal with little intrinsic value, much more abundant than many elements.

It absolutely explains that bitcoin, gold, and fiat all have value because they are strong in various properties of money. Gold is scarce, durable, fungible, portable etc. all to a certain degree. Not much money is history has had 'intrinsic value' so their intrinsic value becomes the properties of ideal money that they posses.

If water was scarce, it would probably make good money. But water is both abundant and not atomic so it can be created.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#345

Post by tedunangst » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 2:43 AM UTC

jasonisalive wrote: post #339

rasz_pl wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you talking about Beanie Babies?

No, I'm talking about something which has the potential to be the world currency.

dogecoin?

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#346

Post by jerrycabbage » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 3:47 AM UTC

logic_geek wrote: post #325

People might want to ask the question why the Bitcoin price goes down so much. One reason might be that keeping up network security is too expensive with Bitcoin (proof of work) and the miners have to sell their bitcoins to cover their electricity costs. Now if there is not enough demand for bitcoins then the price declines since miners continuously have to sell to cover costs. This also has been laid out here https:…

POW's waste has always disturbed me. If BTC was inherited as the global store of value it would just help destroy with planet with the emissions required for security.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#347

Post by celticninja » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #343

celticninja wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily though we have the internet now which has accelerated the spread of new ideas and products on it. We're not dealing with a pre-internet world anymore so comparing them is silly. I think you don't understand. People had no need of the Internet until applications such as online banking, online shopping etc were available to them. They didn't come pre installed on the Internet and whilst they wrre being develope…

I don't think you understand. Before the internet ideas took longer to spread as it was more difficult to disseminate information to people. Now it is incredibly easy which is why new technologies and services have increased adoption rates. Bitcoin doesn't have that because most people don't care about what it does better and do care about what it does worse. 6 years into the experiment including an entire year regul…

i didnt mean to be condescending, i merely meant the older generation such as my parents or grandparents.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#348

Post by leni536 » Fri, Jan 16, 2015, 8:16 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #329

hueving wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens when you lose said wallet?

Or the smartcard develops a hardware fault?

Well I'm a bit late on the questions but here is my suggestion:

For the really secure wallet you program two (or more) cards with the same key in case one of them is lost or craps itself (then throw away the private key). They are protected by a PIN code so they brick themselves after 3 subsequent wrong tries. If you lose one of the cards then you get two new cards, program them with identical private keys (clearly it is different than the previous one) then transfer all of your money to the new wallet.

It's really hard to be your own bank, but it is possible. The beauty of bitcoin that you don't have to trust any third party, but it's really hard manage properly.

I would be surprised if anybody used this scheme, I don't have any bitcoins either. If I jump into the bitcoin business I'm sure I will adopt this scheme.