These on-topic comments are all well and good, but what we really want to know is what Objectivists think of the government~
I Bought a Bitcoin
41–50 of 113 posts
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#42It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work, you need bank transfer, your funds can be frozen, you have to wait in line, etc, etc. I live in Russia and it's amazingly easy. First, everyone here owns a virtual money account. It works like this: you put some money into it and then you can pay your bills (especially internet and mobile phone), small purchases over internet and you ca…
>It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work
Because it's too easy to claim fraud and have your CC provider initialise a charge-back.
I don't know why you can't go to an ATM or a 7-Eleven and use your CC with your PIN to make a purchase. The CC company will know it's probably you because you entered your PIN and the merchant doesn't risk a charge-back.
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#43Is there any evidence of nation states or three letter agencies dipping their toes into Bitcoin? Its seems like a perfect solution for the CIA when they need to move money quickly and discretely to 'difficult' regions or individuals.
I know that Gavin Andresen (unofficial leader of Bitcoin movement) did a talk for the CIA in 2011. But I dont know if their interest was about catching bad guys, using it for themselves or seeking to control/manipulate bitcoin: http://www.bitcointrading.com/pdf/GavinAndresenCIATalk.pdf
So I think an interesting question is whether these same agencies are generating bitcoins or attempting to manipulate the market. The big news recently for Bitcoin is the introduction of ASIC hardware dedicated to mining. An ASIC miner the size of a PC can generate bitcoin hashes 100x faster than a GPU at approximately the same power usage.
ASIC miners have taken a while to hit the market because making an ASIC is hard and expensive for a small company. You can bet they didnt get funding from a brick and mortar bank. There are only a couple of companies with a shippable product.
But surely making this same hardware is a relatively trivial exercise for a nation state, particularly the NSA who run their own fab and would be experts at making silicon tuned for crypto algorithms.
Thoughts?
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#44I wonder if online gambling and gambling in games would be legal with bitcoins? Or less of a hurdle? This could be a huge boon for bitcoins if so to becoming the web currency/virtual wallet.
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#45It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work, you need bank transfer, your funds can be frozen, you have to wait in line, etc, etc. I live in Russia and it's amazingly easy. First, everyone here owns a virtual money account. It works like this: you put some money into it and then you can pay your bills (especially internet and mobile phone), small purchases over internet and you ca…
In Europe it's not that much simplier.
What I like is localbitcoins.com (disclaimer: I have ads for selling and buying on there). It's simple, you actually meet some people interested in bitcoins, it's pretty safe (because of the escrow) and a little more decentralized than mtgox/btc-e.
I say "a little", because the escrow is centralized anyway.
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#46I wonder if online gambling and gambling in games would be legal with bitcoins? Or less of a hurdle? This could be a huge boon for bitcoins if so to becoming the web currency/virtual wallet.
Legal is unclear but a lot easier for sure. Google SatoshiDice
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't the odds of making a single bitcoin as a lone miner, with an ordinary computer, over any sane period of time pretty microscopic at this point? To make any money that way, you'd need to join a mining pool, and at that point you're not really just dipping your toes in the water anymore.
First question, yes, I think you'd be talking about a timespan of months before seeing a reward as a lone miner. Joining a pool is pretty painless though. You just create an account, and probably give them an email address, and then start running GUIMiner or something. You also give them a Bitcoin address to send the rewards. That's it, no other personal information needed.
How does that work? I guess the resulting bitcoins are divided between the people who participate in the pool of there's any success?
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what he said. Also, you seem to think that monetary bases are something that exist independently of government.
Yes it is; There is no powerful entity (violent extortionate power) that taxes people (engaged in parasitism) and requires payment in bitcoin. (the monetary base in question) It's just in statist apologist clothing. Monetary bases exist on any money, whether that is government issued or otherwise, to insinuate otherwise is to imply that there is no money outside that issued by the state, and that has never been and i…
You have misunderstood the grandparent post. His point was that since states exist as a matter of fact and want to have their taxes paid, Bitcoin is less useful than currencies which are acceptable legal tender for that purpose. For one thing, you'll have to pay a small conversion premium on top of the debt you're servicing.
I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exception been in strident and shrill defense of the state, but just stating you think differently and using this as evidence for calling your opinion as fact proves precisely nothing.
You're calling me strident and shrill, when you're characterizing all government as violent and extortionate? OK, if it makes you feel better.
Monetary bases that are not government created are essentially worth only their commodity value, because they lack any reliable institutional backing. In practice, this typically makes them rather inconvenient: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Special-Delivery.aspx
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#49Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme in that everyone is counting on someone else to want them. However this is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value. With bitcoin, the "bag holders" at the end of the scheme have something for their trouble: a global, secure, low fee transaction settlement system. Given that such a network would be quite valuable, there's no reason for it to crash to 0, barrin…
"Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme in that everyone is counting on someone else to want them"
Exactly like gold. Yet you don't see people claiming gold is a "pyramid scheme", now do you?
Most of gold's value is dictated purely by speculation and jewelry use (people want it because it is... rare - there is no other underlying reason).
(People say that gold has value because it has industrial uses, but these uses only justify a small fraction of its price, which is in most parts a result of pure speculation and jewelry use).
Re: I Bought a Bitcoin
#50Is there any evidence of nation states or three letter agencies dipping their toes into Bitcoin? Its seems like a perfect solution for the CIA when they need to move money quickly and discretely to 'difficult' regions or individuals. I know that Gavin Andresen (unofficial leader of Bitcoin movement) did a talk for the CIA in 2011. But I dont know if their interest was about catching bad guys, using it for themselves…
NSA use FPGAs. Even they can't afford ASICs unless its a supercomputer CPU I.e IBM power and they aren't all that quick compared to an FPGA.