Bitcoin hits US$ 4, after being mentioned on CNN yesterday • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin hits US$ 4, after being mentioned on CNN yesterday

#91

Post by infinite8s » Mon, May 02, 2011, 3:18 AM UTC

zbanks wrote: post #85

JCB_K wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ha! that reminds me of my Economy class in high school. We used to do a weekly game, where in the beginning of the year we'd have a certain amount of money, and we'd have to buy stock. The teacher would every week update us with the latest stock information, and based on that we'd have to make decisions. The person with the biggest amount of money at the end of the year won. So I picked stock of a company which was b…

When we did a stock market game in high school, we weren't allowed to use penny stocks. I was so excited to find stocks that were doubling or tripling daily, only to realize how worthless it'd be in real life. If anyone out there is a trader that works with penny stocks, I'd love to hear your insight. Is it possible to "game the system" by working with just a few (10-100) shares, instead of large holdings?

The main issue with small odd lots of penny stocks is that you'd be killed by the commission costs. Most high school "stock market" simulations ignore transaction costs to keep things simple.

Re: Bitcoin hits US$ 4, after being mentioned on CNN yesterday

#92

Post by jsilence » Mon, May 02, 2011, 9:12 AM UTC

xbryanx wrote: post #88

Oh goodie, another part of our economy that ignores the true cost of energy creation. Has anyone looked at models of how this system might work if the miners had to pay significantly more money for electricity?

With the term "energy creation" you are ignoring the first law of thermodynamics.

But apart from nitpicking I agree with your point. In the end the whole economy thing boils down to "having the capacity to actually do stuff.", which ultimately requires energy.

Giving a unit of currency to someone is like giving a promise that he can actually DO something later. In the case of bitcoin, the energy is used (dissipated to heat) during the creation of the currency itself. No substantial backing of the curency beyond that. But then again this is true for any other currency floating around right now.

-jsl

Re: Bitcoin hits US$ 4, after being mentioned on CNN yesterday

#93

Post by sabat » Mon, May 02, 2011, 10:17 PM UTC

sgornick wrote: post #44

sabat wrote: post #43

How can the SEC not be all over this? It's amazing to me that it has either escaped its attention or -- possibly -- it has absolutely no idea what to do about it.

Does the SEC regulate baseball cards? If bitcoin were an equity, then the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission might be looking at it. But even if they did ... if you are in Brazil, Russia, India, China, or wherever, ... how would what the SEC does be relevant? (yes, I'm being purposely obtuse, but remember that bitcoin is data, and as such it knows no borders.)

Hmmmm. This is a cash-equivalent -- or perhaps the SEC could see it that way.

Re: Bitcoin hits US$ 4, after being mentioned on CNN yesterday

#94

Post by imaxwell » Tue, May 03, 2011, 12:08 PM UTC

jarin wrote: post #48

cheez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much the same as saying: What? $3 for a Big Mac? (I'm assuming they're $3). There will only ever be 21 million BTC. Considering that according to the US deficit, there exists at least 13 trillion USD, that would put the final exchange rate at $620K USD per BTC. That is only possible, mind you, if BTC actually catches on.

I wonder why they decided to make it 21 million BTC total instead of a larger number. It seems like you'd run into a situation like when I bought a shirt in Bahrain for some low-ish number of Dinar, not realizing that it was much higher in USD. Spending 0.1 BTC doesn't seem like it should be a lot, even though it could eventually be worth quite a bit.

I know what you mean... I've actually said that leaving out the decimal point altogether and having 210 quadrillion indivisible bitcoins would have been nice. But then you wouldn't get to see articles about dollar parity, dinar parity, etc. right now, when the project needs attention the most.

Come to think of it, maybe that's the reason.