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The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

economist.com

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Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#21

Post by gasull »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #19
gasull wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I mean the African emigrants that send money back home to their families.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#22

Post by ajays »

jacques_chester wrote: post #12
ajays wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

If you open a bank account in the US (and many other parts of the world), you have to show identification. Why not the same in Switzerland? The Swiss can ask for ID when opening an account; if the account holder is a Swiss citizen, give her/him all the privacy you want. If s/he's not, then reveal the accounts when that country's government asks.

Alternately, the Swiss can tell each country how much money their citizens have in Switzerland (in aggregate).

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#24

Post by jacques_chester »

ajays wrote: post #22
jacques_chester wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

If you open a bank account in the US (and many other parts of the world), you have to show identification. Why not the same in Switzerland? The Swiss can ask for ID when opening an account; if the account holder is a Swiss citizen, give her/him all the privacy you want. If s/he's not, then reveal the accounts when that country's government asks. Alternately, the Swiss can tell each country how much money their citize…

Again, why should the Swiss do another country's homework? Enforcing someone else's laws is not their job. They will honour judgements or warrants issued from the benches of most countries, but they're hardly going to just give up secrecy because somebody somewhere is annoyed at them.

Neutrality requires secrecy. If you favour one group with disclosure and not another group, you're no longer strictly neutral. You have to treat everyone identically or it no longer works. That means that you are the refuge of scoundrels and a bulwark of liberty. The Swiss have decided entirely reasonably that that's what they want.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#25

Post by ubernostrum »

jacques_chester wrote: post #24
ajays wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you open a bank account in the US (and many other parts of the world), you have to show identification. Why not the same in Switzerland? The Swiss can ask for ID when opening an account; if the account holder is a Swiss citizen, give her/him all the privacy you want. If s/he's not, then reveal the accounts when that country's government asks. Alternately, the Swiss can tell each country how much money their citize…

Again, why should the Swiss do another country's homework? Enforcing someone else's laws is not their job. They will honour judgements or warrants issued from the benches of most countries, but they're hardly going to just give up secrecy because somebody somewhere is annoyed at them. Neutrality requires secrecy. If you favour one group with disclosure and not another group, you're no longer strictly neutral. You hav…

Well, the way I'd phrase it is that the Swiss have realized that a sense of morals shouldn't get in the way of making a lot of money.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#26

Post by ubernostrum »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #20
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.

Of course, the complement to this is that people whose knowledge of currency comes largely from Neal Stephenson novels give way too much credence to stories breathlessly championing Bitcoin as the future.

Something that can trace its ancestry in a vague way to Bitcoin? Maybe. Bitcoin itself? Exceedingly unlikely.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#27

Post by eru »

tadfisher wrote: post #4
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.

Moreover, the network (and thus Bitcoin) will continue to exist so long as one individual keeps mining.

Yes, but that doesn't guarantee demand.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#28

Post by stevenwagner »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #23
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.

Deflationary currency is an oxymoron.

Deflation - good for you, bad for the state. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6E1k2YO9qU

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#29

Post by ericd »

cpeterso wrote: post #17
hugh3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Plus alcohol and heroin for barter.

I doubt you're going to want to barter with people that desire heroin... Everclear is a good one, though.

Re: The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble

#30

Post by euccastro »

ww520 wrote: post #6

Just a wild thought. Is there a way to associate an email with a future-created bitcoin account? The goal is to be able to send bitcoins easily to an email address even though the recipient has not created a bitcoin account. The recipient can create an account later on to pick up the bitcoins. This would make it easier to seed wider usage of bitcoins. That's how Paypal started. I guess this requires a trusted central…

Create an account for them, send them the wallet.dat, let them log in and transfer to their own account whenever they want? Or just change password, if that's possible.
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