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Realtime Bitcoin Stats

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Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#131

Post by drcode »

dragontamer wrote: post #130
drcode wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you made some good points I will have to think about more. I would think the type of deflation we're discussing had only a small role to play in that crisis, but I admit it probably played some. Of course the irony is that monetary policy causing unreasonably low interest rates (i.e. controlled inflation) was a large factor of that crisis as well.

Got an argument to back that up? Why don't you go through the charts. Find me the year that the Fed caused too much inflation, and then tell me how much the dollar was inflated that year. I doubt you can, because during the housing crisis, the dollar experienced deflation . The Fed acted swiftly, although not swift enough! The dollar failed to hit inflation targets in 2008-2009 as we experienced -0.4% inflation. For…

"The housing bubble was fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long-term interest rates"- Alan Greenspan

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#132

Post by marcosdumay »

wamatt wrote: post #122
treeface wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent many years studying economics, but I'm also a programmer. One thing that annoys me about the discussion that tends to crop up on Hacker News is that you have too many of the latter issuing too many uninformed opinions on the former. Currencies that are doomed to deflate are doomed to enter liquidity traps. There is nothing special about BitCoin that prevents this from happening, regardless of its position…

The difference between a normal currency and bitcoin with regards to deflation is that bitcoin is almost infinitely divisible, whereas traditional currencies are not. Divisibility acts in opposition to deflation to create liquidity. The idea is in the future you don't trade bitcoins per se, but microbits, or picobits etc (or whatever they will be called).

Economies get in a liquidity trap must faster than division becomes a problem. The difference is so marcant that almost nobody even talked about divisibility before the bit coin people.

Anyway, I'm not sure the expression "liquidity trap" means anything when talking about bitcoins.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#133

Post by dragontamer »

drcode wrote: post #131
dragontamer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got an argument to back that up? Why don't you go through the charts. Find me the year that the Fed caused too much inflation, and then tell me how much the dollar was inflated that year. I doubt you can, because during the housing crisis, the dollar experienced deflation . The Fed acted swiftly, although not swift enough! The dollar failed to hit inflation targets in 2008-2009 as we experienced -0.4% inflation. For…

"The housing bubble was fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long-term interest rates"- Alan Greenspan

I'm happy you're patting yourself on the back for your knowledge of a single quote by a single economist. But you still need to make a compelling argument instead of just saying "Things are just so."

See how this game is played?

EDIT: Well, that was probably too mean. So lemme ask you this.

Since you agree with Alan Greenspan so much, please tell me what caused the long-term decline of interest rates. HINT: it wasn't the fed, according to Greenspan. After all, the Fed raised interest rates in 2004 and 2005.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#134

Post by camdykeman »

sneak wrote: post #82
camdykeman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely a bubble forming - bitcoins marketcap was 1B only a week ago ( http://blockchain.info/charts/market-cap ). Note they also use the Ƀ (B with stroke) to represent Bitcoin. Kudos to ECOGEX for their discussion a few weeks ago that set this in motion ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5451084 ).

Many more people use ฿ than Ƀ. Source: I've been studying and speaking on Bitcoin since 2010. ( http://vimeo.com/27653912 )

This is a moot point. I recognize that more people use ฿ than Ƀ. I was simply stating what was used on the site and congratulating the use of (what I consider) to be a more visually appealing symbol.

Congrats on using yourself as your own source. Don't beg the question and stop trolling.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#135

Post by camdykeman »

kiba wrote: post #73
camdykeman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely a bubble forming - bitcoins marketcap was 1B only a week ago ( http://blockchain.info/charts/market-cap ). Note they also use the Ƀ (B with stroke) to represent Bitcoin. Kudos to ECOGEX for their discussion a few weeks ago that set this in motion ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5451084 ).

No, that's complete nonsense. Only some individuals represent bitcoin with a stroke. Bitcoin surprisingly doesn't have a standard in its logo and symbol usage. Everybody said BTC for bitcoin though.

Complete nonsense... Did I say Ƀ was the standard? Did I say ฿ was the standard?

No, I noted they used Ƀ and gave the previous article props for bringing that symbol more recognition. Did I say they invented it? No.

All of you need to stop trolling, comments like the ones in response to my OP are what ruins HackerNews.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#136

Post by richcollins »

gigantor wrote: post #76

I have one new appreciation for fiat currencies - they're designed to circulate with a steady rate of inflation. It seems there's a hesitation of spending bitcoins knowing if you just wait a day it will go up, so it's being treated like a precious metal rather than a new way of paying for things. Edit: Thanks for the correction, meant to say fiat currencies tend to 'inflate', not deflate.

The reason people aren't paying for things is because its hard to do, not due to deflationary concerns. If I were confident that the purchasing power of bitcoin was going to continue increasing relative to the USD, and all vendors accepted BTC, I'd immediately move over all of my USD to BTC and spend my BTC on a daily basis.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#137

Post by richcollins »

omni wrote: post #90
dj2stein9 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the argument that a deflationary currency, by itself, will make people not be willing to buy things. Consider a savings account - why would anyone take money out of their savings account to buy things? If all you need to do is keep it in the account, it will make more money, so why spend it?

It's a question of degree. Your savings account with $100,000 in it will probably be worth about $100,002 tomorrow at current rates. The equivalent amount in Bitcoin might be worth much, much more at the rate it's been climbing.

It doesn't matter if you keep converting your income to BTC as it comes in, because if you spend your USD income instead of buying BTC then you've effectively done the same thing.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#139

Post by nawitus »

gigantor wrote: post #76

I have one new appreciation for fiat currencies - they're designed to circulate with a steady rate of inflation. It seems there's a hesitation of spending bitcoins knowing if you just wait a day it will go up, so it's being treated like a precious metal rather than a new way of paying for things. Edit: Thanks for the correction, meant to say fiat currencies tend to 'inflate', not deflate.

According that argument you shouldn't spend any fiat currencies either, because it's more profitable to convert all of it to bitcoins.

Re: Realtime Bitcoin Stats

#140

Post by dragontamer »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #109
dj2stein9 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the argument that a deflationary currency, by itself, will make people not be willing to buy things. Consider a savings account - why would anyone take money out of their savings account to buy things? If all you need to do is keep it in the account, it will make more money, so why spend it?

That bit of economics common knowledge was also developed before our modern, dynamic, fast, globally interconnected economy. I'm sure there's still some technical truth to it, but I wonder if it's as true now to the degree it was back in, say, the Depression era. It would be interesting to see how a currency with a set rate of deflation instead of inflation worked now. Say your money gained 3% per year purchasing pow…

You mean... the Japanese Yen?

Nintendo and Sony posting record losses as the Yen continues to get stronger and stronger. The $200 Wii console sold the best in 2010 and 2011, but because the Yen deflated so much Nintendo lost money on the USD -> Yen conversion and overall didn't do so well.

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