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Bitcoin breaks $200

coinbase.com

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Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#111

Post by Phlarp »

jaekwon wrote: post #105
ajross wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, no. According to blockchain.info and this $200 price, there are less than $2.5 billion worth of bitcoins in circulation, total. The idea that this would somehow serve as a hedge against an economy a thousand times larger is laughable.

Nobody is suggesting that Bitcoin will replace the USD (yet). For now, some people are going into Bitcoin because it cannot be confiscated. And govt default is correlated with crazy taxation measures. Take a look at what France is doing now.

>cannot be confiscated.

Several internet drug lords would beg to differ.

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#112

Post by kinghajj »

MarcusBrutus wrote: post #101

Bitcoin is fiat, it's not backed by anything of real value and doesn't have a government or a strong (and I mean national-government-kind strong) player behind it that is willing to devote actual resources to prop it up (which is what all other fiat monies have and which is why they usually stay around for a century or so, after that they either become obsolete or their value greatly diminishes due to inflation). It…

There is no such thing as intrinsic value, all value is subjective, and Bitcoin most definitely has subjective value; otherwise it would not be exchanged! If you define "intrinsic value" as something like "has subjective value for a great majority of individuals," then Bitcoin does have intrinsic value as a way to easily and quietly send wealth without requiring a central middle man. There are also numerous theoretical ways in which it could be made useful (colored coins, for instance.) I don't understand how people can look at Bitcoin and not see that it has some use, even if they believe that use is overblown.

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#113

Post by [deleted] »

mrb wrote: post #80
ap22213 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising that it's rising in value. People are holding on to ~12M coins (worth approx. $2.4B) and are hyping it up so that more people buy them. The more people that buy them, the more the price will go up, the more that they'll be worth, the more that people will buy them....

Ah, the old and false "holding" argument. 2 million coins have changed hands in the last 30 days: http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=30d And that is just on these exchanges, not even counting other places of exchanges (coinbase which is probably the 2nd largest coins seller in the US), or purchases (Bitpay signed up 10 thousand vendors!), etc. If this rate is kept, the entire existent volume of bitc…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#114

Post by Phlarp »

sliverstorm wrote: post #108
Phlarp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha, but did your general laziness prevent you from properly storing the keys?

You're sharp. That's exactly what I'm wondering right now. I think the answer is yes though.

My pet theory is that a good amount of the early coins are effectively "dead" with either the keys lost, brain wallets forgotten or the back-up USB keys long since formatted (or you know, you got arrested and the encrypted wallet is seized as evidence and revealing the key or otherwise moving the coins would basically be an admission of guilt)

It's easy to set up triple redundant cold storage and promptly place multiple paper backups in different safety deposit boxes now when the price is rounding $200; but how many people went through this amount of effort when bitcoin was still considered a joke or nifty social/economic experiment and traded below $4 or even $.04

Even better; how many people stored them in an insecure manner and have since lost them to a scam/virus/offline attack.

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#115

Post by qoo »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #72

Who wants to talk about china? Over the last few days the volume of transactions on btcchina has doubled. Gov run chinese media outlets have been surprisingly positive about btc. What is going on? One of the potential uses of btc is capital flight, and that is something that china has been incredibly strict about with their capital controls. Why aren't they clamping down? edit: some commentary from someone in china f…

The Chinese will do anything to destabilize USD

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#116

Post by simplemath »

betterunix wrote: post #37
simplemath wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tulips and gold also don't have built in rock solid transaction protocols

Rock solid? A system that requires vast and increasing amounts of the world's energy to be devoted to it just to achieve a vague notion of security? A system that can be attacked in polynomial time (but let's just say that is not a problem; after all, we never defined security in a way to preclude such things!)? That is your definition of "rock solid?"

It presents significantly fewer attack vectors than any other payment system that I'm aware of.

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#117

Post by simplemath »

betterunix wrote: post #24
simplemath wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again if you're looking at BTC as e-gold you're missing the point. The value is the txn network and that isn't going away. Price volatility is irrelevant to the long term value of it as a transaction vector of last resort for a huge number of applications.

I would not have so much confidence in a system that, in your own words, is a last resort .

Last resort on a global scale is still a gigantic market.

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#118

Post by jafaku »

betterunix wrote: post #37
simplemath wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tulips and gold also don't have built in rock solid transaction protocols

Rock solid? A system that requires vast and increasing amounts of the world's energy to be devoted to it just to achieve a vague notion of security? A system that can be attacked in polynomial time (but let's just say that is not a problem; after all, we never defined security in a way to preclude such things!)? That is your definition of "rock solid?"

If it's not solid you are free to attack it.

You keep dismissing the incentives that Bitcoin gives, which should also be considering part of its security. The only rational attacker that could have an interest and resources to stop Bitcoin is a nation-state. But even then, another nation-state could jump in and protect it. We can't know what will happen until it happens. The field that you want to use to model everything is too narrow for Bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin breaks $200

#120

Post by hollerith »

betterunix wrote: post #37
simplemath wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tulips and gold also don't have built in rock solid transaction protocols

Rock solid? A system that requires vast and increasing amounts of the world's energy to be devoted to it just to achieve a vague notion of security? A system that can be attacked in polynomial time (but let's just say that is not a problem; after all, we never defined security in a way to preclude such things!)? That is your definition of "rock solid?"

>requires vast and increasing amounts of the world's energy

"Vast" is hyperbole, IMHO. It might in fact on net conserve energy, by, e.g., reducing the need to haul cash around in armored vehicles and the need for things like bank buildings. It takes a lot of energy to build and operate buildings.

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