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Bitcoin $500

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Re: Bitcoin $500

#91

Post by oleganza »

Egregore wrote: post #82

What will happen with the price of bitcoin if quantum computer with enough q-bits will be invented?

Most probably, quantum computer will not be invented overnight. Hash functions are not seriously vulnerable, but ECDSA signatures are. Fortunately, most funds are sitting on never-used addresses which are basically the hashes of the public keys, which are not instantly crackable by a quantum computer. People will probably have time to switch to a new signature method which is resistant to QC. Like Lamport Signatures, for instance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport_signature

The price will dip, but may recover pretty quickly, like when the famous v0.7/v0.8 fork that happened this March.

If the Bitcoin can't be fixed and becomes unusable, its value will instantly become zero and everyone's savings in it will become permanently lost.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#92

Post by archQuestions »

pseudonym wrote: post #5

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it impossible to withdraw USD from MtGox at this point? How can this be a viable source of BTC->USD comparison when the only thing you can do with a USD balance on MtG is buy?

CaVirtex.com was paying higher than MtGox yesterday...

Re: Bitcoin $500

#93

Post by Aqueous »

snitko wrote: post #2

Well now it must definitely be too late to invest. Don't even think about it guys. It's a ponzi scheme slash not real money slash libertarian wet dream. I'd rather trust helicopter Ben with my savings than some obscure open source software that eats 10Gb of my disk space.

The market capitalization of US dollars is (correct if I'm wrong) $3 trillion.

The current market capitalization of BitCoin is above $5 billion.

There will only be around 21 million BitCoins.

If the market capitlization of BitCoin even gets close to a national currency like the US dollar, each BitCoin will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We are about to be at $500. Unless governments crack down on BitCoin(possible) I don't foresee this stopping anytime soon.

To me government intervention to the point of banning BitCoin seems like it would be, at this point, somewhat pointless. The Federal Government has known about BitCoin for some time and has yet to take any major regulatory action against it. I think if they wanted to shut it down they would have long before millions of people started using it, and long before major backers like Peter Thiel and the Winklevi had time to establish BitCoin-based companies and lobbying groups. You want to nip something like this in the bud before it becomes an entrenched interest - and they haven't done that yet.

I'd say it's not too late to invest.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#94

Post by iamjustin »

Tycho wrote: post #38
rdl wrote: post #14

I'm really glad I wasn't able to figure out how to short bitcoin right after the Silk Road takedown; I would have gone broke.

I wouldn't want to short the one asset that's been on an exponential growth curve. It can only go down 100% but who knows how high it could climb. At least put a ceiling on it.

>It can only go down 100%

Isn't this true of all stocks/commodities? You can only lose 100% of your money.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#95

Post by drewblaisdell »

pearjuice wrote: post #43

Here we go again. A thread full of financial experts, conspiracists and excessive naysayers. Let's keep Bitcoin off the frontpage until it crashes, okay? With this trend it will reach an all-time-high every week or so which every tech blog will wrap in a bag-full-of-fluff-blogpost, there will be new analysis et cetera. Let it go . Just enjoy the ride.

> Let's keep Bitcoin off the frontpage until it crashes, okay?

Because you say so, right?

Re: Bitcoin $500

#96

Post by polarix »

ck2 wrote: post #13

What happens to the price when only people with 500Ghash/sec+ can make coins next month? Early adopters are rightfully getting a nice reward now, but how do you get "fresh blood" when the difficulty is off the chart unless you have several thousand dollars in hardware?

It turns out we might have enough miners for a while. No problem, time to beef up the exchanges and merchant systems.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#98

Post by pearjuice »

drewblaisdell wrote: post #95
pearjuice wrote: post #43

Here we go again. A thread full of financial experts, conspiracists and excessive naysayers. Let's keep Bitcoin off the frontpage until it crashes, okay? With this trend it will reach an all-time-high every week or so which every tech blog will wrap in a bag-full-of-fluff-blogpost, there will be new analysis et cetera. Let it go . Just enjoy the ride.

> Let's keep Bitcoin off the frontpage until it crashes, okay? Because you say so, right?

It was a proposal and my current opinion on the Bitcoin spam every few days on Hacker News. I wasn't expecting anyone to agree with me, but for one am free to state my opinion.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#100

Post by idProQuo »

iamjustin wrote: post #94
Tycho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to short the one asset that's been on an exponential growth curve. It can only go down 100% but who knows how high it could climb. At least put a ceiling on it.

>It can only go down 100% Isn't this true of all stocks/commodities? You can only lose 100% of your money.

Short selling is a different game. In essence you're betting that the price will go down. Right now the price could go down $500, and you'd make $500. However if the price rose $10,000 you'd lose $10,000.
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