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The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

economist.com

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Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#11

Post by ajays »

jacques_chester wrote: post #9
katovatzschyn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As much as it pains me, because probably the price will fall even further, I'll keep some BTC around just in case... Swiss Francs, CAD, and even USD are much safer if stability is your concern. If the Euro indeed collapses as you seem to fear, you may even find yourself making gains.

The Swiss Franc is, from a historical perspective, probably the safest currency in the world. Switzerland is an ideal banking country in geopolitical terms. It borders with three major economies, but is also an easily defendable mountain fortress. It has remained largely undisturbed because it would simply cost too much to invade. That's why, for hundreds of years, it has been a banking mecca. Europe has been wracked…

Switzerland is a "banking mecca" because of its privacy laws, which encourage the corrupt from around the world to park their money in Swiss banks. I would posit and say that the Swiss system actually _encourages_ (large-scale) corruption around the world.

And what happens to the money when the dictator dies? Do the Swiss banks return the money to the people on their own volition? Of course not.

I admire Swiss privacy laws, but they should be applicable only to the Swiss citizens. Switzerland has no reason to shield non-citizens and criminals from around the world.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#12

Post by jacques_chester »

ajays wrote: post #11
jacques_chester wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swiss Franc is, from a historical perspective, probably the safest currency in the world. Switzerland is an ideal banking country in geopolitical terms. It borders with three major economies, but is also an easily defendable mountain fortress. It has remained largely undisturbed because it would simply cost too much to invade. That's why, for hundreds of years, it has been a banking mecca. Europe has been wracked…

Switzerland is a "banking mecca" because of its privacy laws, which encourage the corrupt from around the world to park their money in Swiss banks. I would posit and say that the Swiss system actually _encourages_ (large-scale) corruption around the world. And what happens to the money when the dictator dies? Do the Swiss banks return the money to the people on their own volition? Of course not. I admire Swiss privac…

The privacy laws are part of the attraction (though they're not unique), but they're not totally impenetrable. Show the Swiss government decent evidence that funds in a Swiss bank are the proceeds of a crime and those funds will be seized. But why should the Swiss do your homework for you?

Requiring citizenship in order to obtain secrecy is, if you think about it, not really going to work. How do you prove that the account holder is a citizen if you don't know who it is?

Neutrality means, necessarily, that you will deal with scum. But it also reduces your chances of involvement with devastating wars. The Swiss have made their choices.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#13

Post by Lexarius »

I did a little mining while it was profitable, but running the air conditioning to keep the GPUs from melting cannibalized most of it during the summer. I'll have to check back once things cool down a bit more - perhaps a drop in difficulty could make "free" heating for my apartment viable again. Not holding my breath, though.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#14

Post by hippich »

Lexarius wrote: post #13

I did a little mining while it was profitable, but running the air conditioning to keep the GPUs from melting cannibalized most of it during the summer. I'll have to check back once things cool down a bit more - perhaps a drop in difficulty could make "free" heating for my apartment viable again. Not holding my breath, though.

Do not expect it to happen soon tho. Before $30+ price difficulty was _doubling_ every two weeks. Today with 90+% price cut difficulty drops 10-15 % every two weeks...

Now, if you really wants to make it right - buy water blocks for your cards, route water pipes outside your building and mine :) AC will thank you :)

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#17

Post by cpeterso »

hugh3 wrote: post #7
katovatzschyn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As much as it pains me, because probably the price will fall even further, I'll keep some BTC around just in case... Swiss Francs, CAD, and even USD are much safer if stability is your concern. If the Euro indeed collapses as you seem to fear, you may even find yourself making gains.

Or the classic hedge currency: canned food and ammo. (Maybe not the ammo, in Europe. Get a bat.)

Plus alcohol and heroin for barter.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#18

Post by cpeterso »

hippich wrote: post #15

Overall, reading comments on the economist site I now understand how public perception of bitcoin technology is wrong.

I don't think the public is going to understand BitCoin for a long time. Many people don't know the difference between Google and their browser's address bar. Even for early adopters, BitCoin needs a better marketing to inspire confidence.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#19

Post by SkyMarshal »

gasull wrote: post #8
Tichy wrote: post #3

I was about to sell my remaining bitcoins this morning when I realized: wait a minute, I don't even know how long the Euro will continue to exist (living in Euro country). As much as it pains me, because probably the price will fall even further, I'll keep some BTC around just in case... On the other hand I suppose the existence of Silk Road is not sufficient to drive prices up, because most vendors will just convert…

> On the other hand I suppose the existence of Silk Road is not sufficient to drive prices up Right now Bitcoin has a controlled monetary inflation of 30% a year. Its user base isn't growing. It's actually shrinking if you count the speculators as "users". I agree with other comments, right now it might be better to hold dollars. Also gold, despite it's depreciation lately. I think Bitcoin will survive. I can see the…

By 'African diaspora', do you mean Africans in different countries will use BTC to transact with each other across borders? Or is there some wide-scale emigration of African people out of Africa and across the globe I wasn't aware of?

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#20

Post by SkyMarshal »

mcantelon wrote: post #2

Bitcoin it ahead of its time. Bitcoin is has a lot of potential uses and these uses haven't gone away because a bubble burst.

Indeed. In the long term this is just statistical noise, as long as the underlying tech and theoretical foundations are solid.

People weened on CNBC and other breathless, 24/7 financial news give way too much credence to short-term market flutterings and twitterings.

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