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How To Use Bitcoin – The Most Important Creation In The History Of Man

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Today's story from the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24871444

A man who ran an online "wallet service" for storing Bitcoins has claimed hackers stole virtual currency from his site worth more than one million Australian dollars
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Which points at a major weak point for bitcoin. If I was donning my tinfoil hat I'd suggest that TPTB are doing this to undermine confidence in bitcoin bwahahahaha !!1!!11!!!! :tinfoil
 
psionl0 said:
timhau said:
No. Price volatility only means that it undergoes a lot of variation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with trends. If total variations upward > total variations downward, price increases. If it goes the other way around, it decreases. If they're roughly equal, price stays roughly where it is in the long term (but hits a lot of points both below and above that level during the time frame).
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This makes more sense than what AdMan had to say about the matter.
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And how does it exactly?

As I said volatility does not mean the price consistently rises. By definition it undergoes variation, which does not contradict what I said. Are you arguing otherwise?
 
Major Bitcoin theft from website

A man who ran an online "wallet service" for storing Bitcoins has claimed hackers stole virtual currency from his site worth more than one million Australian dollars.

The Australian man said 4,100 Bitcoins (US$1.04m, £650,000) were taken in two separate attacks.

He said he would not report the theft to police as Bitcoin transactions are virtually impossible to trace.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24871444
 
Tippit said:
What amazes me, is that despite the enormous appreciation of bitcoin over a short period of time, and despite the problems with Mt. Gox and the takedown of silk road, people still spend them. This flies in the face of the other thread in which multiple posters, usually the same culprits, claim that deflation is "bad". It seems that things getting cheaper, and not for the wrong reasons, and not having our purchasing power stolen by banks and governments is actually a good thing.
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Maybe it's just a case of 'high tech money', and can be considered analogous to high tech computer equipment. We know next year's laptop will be much better and cheaper, but we do go ahead and buy now. More than ever before, in fact.

Almost all of the arguments such as 'deflation is bad' are irrelevant and rather stupid as their premises, and assertions of cause and effect are inadequately postured. Hyack.
 
mhaze said:
Maybe it's just a case of 'high tech money', and can be considered analogous to high tech computer equipment. We know next year's laptop will be much better and cheaper, but we do go ahead and buy now. More than ever before, in fact.
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There seems to be a certain attraction in ordering a pizza on-line and paying for it with bitcoin but it's not a smart use of a highly appreciating currency.

OTOH bitcoin has no equal for transferring large sums of money around the world. International transfers involving regular currencies are subject to complex laws and hefty fees from governments and banks on both sides of the border. They can also take a long time to complete. With bitcoin, the transfer can be done in minutes at a cost of only a few mBTC.

mhaze said:
Almost all of the arguments such as 'deflation is bad' are irrelevant and rather stupid as their premises, and assertions of cause and effect are inadequately postured. Hyack.
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One of the maxims adopted by some of the "critical" thinkers here is that if you believe that bitcoin is bad then by definition, no argument against it (no matter how silly) could possibly be flawed. ;)
 
psionl0 said:
One of the maxims adopted by some of the "critical" thinkers here is that if you believe that bitcoin is bad then by definition, no argument against it (no matter how silly) could possibly be flawed. ;)
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More interesting straw. I would bet that you can't even find one example of this argument, let alone plural.
 
gnome said:
More interesting straw. I would bet that you can't even find one example of this argument, let alone plural.
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You're right. I wouldn't find one example of an argument against bitcoin in this thread that you would consider flawed, let alone plural.
 
psionl0 said:
There seems to be a certain attraction in ordering a pizza on-line and paying for it with bitcoin but it's not a smart use of a highly appreciating currency.
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When I buy with bitcoin, it is because something can be had cheaper that way. Basic self interest.
psionl0 said:
...bitcoin has no equal for transferring large sums of money around the world. International transfers involving regular currencies are subject to complex laws and hefty fees from governments and banks on both sides of the border. They can also take a long time to complete. With bitcoin, the transfer can be done in minutes at a cost of only a few mBTC. ....
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in my opinion six months to one year for large scale implementation by small business people on places such as ebay.

psionl0 said:
One of the maxims adopted by some of the "critical" thinkers here is that if you believe that bitcoin is bad then by definition, no argument against it (no matter how silly) could possibly be flawed. :wink:
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I'm making my every-six-month drop in visit because this is a repository of the bad arguments. The ones that, when repeated, cause people to burst out in laughter.
 
psionl0 said:
OTOH bitcoin has no equal for transferring large sums of money around the world. International transfers involving regular currencies are subject to complex laws and hefty fees from governments and banks on both sides of the border. They can also take a long time to complete. With bitcoin, the transfer can be done in minutes at a cost of only a few mBTC.
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That would be a great point in Bitcoin's favour if it were actually useful as a currency.

I can send an email in a matter of seconds, with a picture of a cheque attached, but it's not much good if they can't actually use it like money. If we're talking about speed, then how long it takes to extract the value that currency represents is probably the better measure of it.

As an example, a couple of weeks ago I sent about USD250,000 to India. It cost me roughly USD20, about the same for the recipient, and took 3 days. He can actually spend that money after the 3 days is up, pay his suppliers, wages, rent and so on.

If he and I do the same thing through e.g. MtGox** then, yes, he will get a Bitcoin credit in seconds but he can't spend it. To get a currency he can actually use (USD let's say), he still needs to do a bank transfer, still gets charged the USD20 and it takes over a month. From what I've read elsewhere a month is optimistic.

If I want to send the same value of Euros to Germany through my bank it will cost me about EUR6 and take 2-3 days. If I go the MtGox route there's a 1% fee to withdraw (USD2500 equivalent), and it still takes in excess of a month.

At present using Bitcoin in a useful way is slower than posting parcels of cash and as expensive as a bank transfer - because you still need to do a bank transfer.

You may say "that's just how things are now, it will be better when most people have adopted it", but that's the situation as it stands, and it's not one that is going to encourage people to take it up as a currency.


** I'm aware MtGox gets a lot of flak for less than ideal service, but I searched for bitcoin exchanges and the other 3 results I found had stopped trading. If there's a better example let me know.
 
Belz... said:
351 at this moment. Wow. Quite a spike, there.

http://preev.com/
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It's pretty much a textbook example of volatility at the moment:

picture.php


Terrible for a currency -- if you got paid in bitcoins on Saturday, you better not have wanted to spend them Sunday. Definitely a speculator's/day-trader's dream though... especially considering the Barnum principle.
 
Tyke said:
That would be a great point in Bitcoin's favour if it were actually useful as a currency.
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The weakness is still having to convert to and from other currencies. Once more people start to use bitcoin as their primary currency the situation might change but as long as the price continues to escalate, there will be a reluctance to spend bitcoins which limits its use as a currency.

Tyke said:
** I'm aware MtGox gets a lot of flak for less than ideal service, but I searched for bitcoin exchanges and the other 3 results I found had stopped trading. If there's a better example let me know.
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https://localbitcoins.com/ is a better option but the limits are lower than what you are alluding to.
 
remirol said:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=546&pictureid=8326[/qimg]
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Now that is a classic example of a dishonest graph. Instead of starting the scale at $0, it starts at $200 which makes the variations in price appear more severe.

Looked at over a slightly longer time frame, you see what I described EARLIER:
"When you compare the bitcoin price with the trend line, you get what you would normally expect if the price rises significantly faster than the trendline would indicate - a price correction back towards the trendline."
 
Belz... said:
Thanks for missing the point.
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The point is that not everybody is as good at reading graphs as you are.

Many people will not even look at the scale - especially if they are only giving the graph a quick glance. Therefore, they will be fooled by any scale distortion.
 
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