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Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

arstechnica.com

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Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#131

Post by pyvpx »

casidiablo wrote: post #125
guruz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually several bars in Berlin which are supposed to take Bitcoins. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Restaurants_and_cafes I don't have an Android+Wallet App (I think you need that), so if anyone with such a phone wants to go with me there, I'm up for it :)

Google Wallet does not support Bitcoins, and I don't think they will support it anytime soon. Google Wallet is just an easy way to manage your credit cards and, sometimes, pay using NFC.

I find your reply humorously telling -- wallet app means just that: a bitcoin wallet application. Google and it's associated services/applications are not the end-all be-all ;)

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#132

Post by EliRivers »

tocomment wrote: post #129

So if there is ever a bug discovered in the protocol or say the crytography methods get broken, or say we need more than 8 decimal places in the coins. How do you get all members of a distributed system to upgrade? Would holders of bitcoins have to upgrade as well?

If we need more than 8 decimal places, we have a new currency of very similar nature with a more convenient base unit. By that point, the principle will have been proven.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#133

Post by eof »

NickNameNick wrote: post #83
eof wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well your logic is obviously flawed, because people do use bitcoins for transactions and they have changed by hundreds of percentage points. "No one" is patently false. Besides, illicit transactions are still transactions. And.. you are just plain wrong. Bitcoin is also useful for buying many completely legal things. Including a VPN that can't be linked to your identity. (Illicit you say? What about a journalist in a…

You do realize bitcoin is not anonymous... The act of conducting a transaction posts the wallet id's of the participants to the global ledger, and associating wallet id's to real identities is far from impossible.

It is nearly impossible if I play satoshi dice with my coins for a while via TOR before spending them, or.. I buy them via cash through localbitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#134

Post by pantaril »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #107
eof wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well your logic is obviously flawed, because people do use bitcoins for transactions and they have changed by hundreds of percentage points. "No one" is patently false. Besides, illicit transactions are still transactions. And.. you are just plain wrong. Bitcoin is also useful for buying many completely legal things. Including a VPN that can't be linked to your identity. (Illicit you say? What about a journalist in a…

Bitcoins are almost useless for legal and non-illicit transactions. Paypal is cheaper than bitcoins in these situations, if you account for the astronomical currency risk and thus the premium bitcoin-traders and shops accepting btc have to charge in order to not go out of bussiness in an eyeblink.

That's not true. If i'm not mistaken, paypal charges percentage of the ammount recieved to all merchants recieving money. Also, fees are charged for any international transfer and paypal can disable your account and freeze your funds on a whim.

On the other hand, i don't know what "astronomical currency risk" are you talking about. Merchants accepting bitcoin are not forced to keep their balance in bitcoins. They can exchange it for dollars or other official currency every hour if they wish so. They are not affected by the volatility of the bitcoin exchange rate as you probably asume.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#135

Post by netcan »

nacker wrote: post #126
netcan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this a little different. I think this is proof of incredible demand. I'd also add poor usability and difficult to understand to the list of hurdles that bitcoin is overcoming. I think this is one of those cases where the demand is so strong that people put up with anything. Online Payments really sucks, for both sides. Merchants aren't guaranteed that the money they get will stay in their accounts. They need t…

The increased demand seems to be largely from current users rather than new users, as this chart shows: http://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses

That doesn't sound like a bad thing.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#136

Post by ryanbrunner »

pyvpx wrote: post #131
casidiablo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Wallet does not support Bitcoins, and I don't think they will support it anytime soon. Google Wallet is just an easy way to manage your credit cards and, sometimes, pay using NFC.

I find your reply humorously telling -- wallet app means just that: a bitcoin wallet application. Google and it's associated services/applications are not the end-all be-all ;)

To be fair, capitalizing "Wallet" makes it pretty confusing. If someone said "You need a Mac + Mail app", I would assume they meant the OSX mail app and not just a general e-mail client.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#137

Post by glesica »

shredfvz wrote: post #127
bayesianhorse wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins are almost useless for legal and non-illicit transactions. Paypal is cheaper than bitcoins in these situations, if you account for the astronomical currency risk and thus the premium bitcoin-traders and shops accepting btc have to charge in order to not go out of bussiness in an eyeblink.

There's 0% chargeback risk with Bitcoin, and 0% risk of fraud. Counterfeit is impossible. These factors substantially reduce the cost of selling goods and services with Bitcoin.

There's also no way to recover your Bitcoins if they get stolen (as many, many people have discovered already). My credit card on the other hand, can be made whole again with a simple phone call to my bank (YMMV, please no stories about banks being big meanies).

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#138

Post by glesica »

shredfvz wrote: post #48
glesica wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illicit plus grey market and a few special cases. Fine, you win the Pedant's Prize for nitpicking. The point is that they don't make a good general-purpose currency. Just because they're awesome for buying drugs and secret VPNs doesn't mean very much in the grand scheme of things (most transactions, at least in the developed world, do not take place in the grey market). Also, just because some people do something doe…

Money is ultimately just a standardized indicator of wealth with no intrinsic value on its own, a definition shared by both USD and BTC. The downside of USD being that it can be counterfeited, illegally by unscrupulous individuals or legally by the Federal Reserve (see: QE Infinity). Regrettably, it's still super common for people to turn up their noses in disgust, claiming "Bitcoin Boogey Man, oh noezzz"! I'm sorry,…

I personally don't care what people use it for. My point is that it is primarily good for illicit and "grey market" transactions, and really nothing else. You entire argument demonstrates that you missed my point completely.

Why would I buy a cheeseburger with Bitcoins? Say the cheeseburger costs 0.1 Bitcoins (today). Tomorrow, who knows what those (fractional) Bitcoins will be worth!

Dollars (or whatever) on the other hand are generally pretty stable. Currency fluctuations, on a day-to-day basis, are very, very small. Sure, there's the occasional hyper-inflationary episode (several South American countries have experienced these somewhat regularly), but that's the exception.

The problem is that Bitcoin is, at least at this point, more of a commodity that people trade when they can't (or don't want to) use traditional money. It is not a "currency" in that sense.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#139

Post by kjackson2012 »

celticninja wrote: post #65
kjackson2012 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rising price does not imply long-term viability. A stable price does. For long term viability, people can't just be buying and selling it, they should be transacting with it. It seems like the most active form of Bitcoin use that I've seen is trading. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a double-edged sword, as people learned last year. Once more and more regular people actually start using it for real purcha…

it has to reach a plateau before it becomes stable, it does this by finding the market rate, which is what is hapenig with the price rise. eventually it will hit a point where daily demand and supply of BTC will match and at that point the price should become steady. Given the scarcity of the product it is not surpising the price is considered low at the moment.

That's not how a market works. First it overshoots its "true value" because of a buying frenzy and then falls back down, rinse and repeat. I can't speak to whether right now it is still on the rise, or if has overshot its "true value" and then it's going to drop. Some people believe the former, others believe the latter. Differing opinions is what makes a market.

So far, momentum is on the upside, but don't think that it will just neatly and asymptotically reach its "true value". Expect a lot of volatility. The fact there isn't a lot of volatility here means that consensus is that prices will continue to rise.

Re: Bitcoin reaches an all-time trading high of over $33

#140

Post by celticninja »

lenazegher wrote: post #114
eof wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well your logic is obviously flawed, because people do use bitcoins for transactions and they have changed by hundreds of percentage points. "No one" is patently false. Besides, illicit transactions are still transactions. And.. you are just plain wrong. Bitcoin is also useful for buying many completely legal things. Including a VPN that can't be linked to your identity. (Illicit you say? What about a journalist in a…

>Bitcoin is also useful for buying many completely legal things. Including a VPN that can't be linked to your identity. The "can't be linked to your identity" part depends entirely on how you get your BTC in the first place. If you buy them with cash from a guy on the street who has no idea who you are, fair enough. If you buy them from an exchange by making a deposit from your bank account, the level of anonymity yo…

Coin mixers exist and can obfuscate the origins of the coins.
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