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Topic: Bitcoin digital currency (Read 280333 times) |
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Nazgand
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #120 on: Aug 23rd, 2011, 10:33am » |
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BTC could modify its protocol to incorporate the improvements SC made... The probably will need to to keep the currency popular; 10 minute blocks are too long.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #121 on: Aug 23rd, 2011, 11:26am » |
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Without knowing any details, I find it strange to believe that SolidCoin will replace BitCoin because it is better, without also believing that SolidCoin itself will be replaced by something better next year. And if digital currencies become obsolete so fast, how exactly are they protecting us from traditional fiat currencies that might lose their value? Sure, there may be profits for those that get in on the ground floor, just like there are profits for those who get in on the ground floor of any Ponzi scheme that takes off. But any "money" that lacks some of the fundamentals of money (legal status, taxation authority), even if has some other fundamentals (accounting, controlled supply) is at base a Ponzi scheme.
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UruramTururam
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #122 on: Aug 30th, 2011, 9:04am » |
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Crystal ball report: Last week I bought over 650SC for 2BTC. I've sold them today for about 9.5BTC. Nice gain. But it could have been much better if I had sold three days ago - it was over 20BTC then. I have to fix my clairvoyant device...
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Caffa et bucella per attactionem corporum venit ad stomachum meum. BGG Arimaa badges - get your own one!
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #123 on: Sep 9th, 2011, 7:55pm » |
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on Aug 17th, 2011, 9:41pm, Fritzlein wrote:So you bought 7 BTC @ $7, just like last time? If the price again goes to $32 and you sell out at the peak, I am definitely going to ask to rent your crystal ball... |
| Hmmm, BitCoins are now under $5. Will they ever see $7 again? Perhaps I'll stick with my Magic Eight Ball.
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UruramTururam
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #124 on: Sep 10th, 2011, 8:05am » |
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We shall see, we shall see. Now I have about 14.5 BTC (After the SC trick) and I don't want to sell them. They make me interested in the whole business at least... By the way I wonder what happened to the guy who bought my first 7 coins.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #125 on: Oct 8th, 2011, 9:06am » |
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Today Bitcoins are trading under $4 for the first time since May. Drawing a straight line on a log scale from the $32 peak to today suggests reaching $1 by the end of the year.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #126 on: Oct 21st, 2011, 1:49pm » |
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Woah, I missed the recent crash to $2.50. UT, it's looking grim for a profit on your $7 BitCoins. Do you have a price point at which you will throw in the towel, like a good momentum trader, or will you hang on to them and hope? At some point it seems like cashing out isn't worth it any more, and it is better to keep the BitCoins you have as souvenirs. You are a coin collector, right?
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UruramTururam
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #127 on: Oct 22nd, 2011, 3:43am » |
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All in all I'm ahead as I got more during the peak that I may lose now even if BTC drop to absolute zero. So, no, I don't want to sell the ones I got (there's about 14.5 of them after converting BTC->SC->BTC during the SC peak). What is interesting here - the high 'difficulty' rating shows that quite a lot of people still mine BTC even when their current gain is far below the electricity cost for BTC generating. As for collecting - yeah, right, but bitcoins do not feature platypuses...
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« Last Edit: Oct 22nd, 2011, 3:49am by UruramTururam » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #129 on: Nov 1st, 2011, 12:10pm » |
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on Nov 1st, 2011, 11:42am, mistre wrote: Woah, hold on to your hats for some majorly shocking news: the lead developer of BitCoin is optimistic about the future of BitCoin! The article rightly points out that BitCoin only has a long-term future if people want to use it as a currency rather than using it as a way to speculate, hedge, gamble, or what have you. Will people actually start using BitCoins to buy and sell goods and services? It's a little disappointing that, since this dynamic is the key, the article only quotes the daily volume of BitCoins as currency trading. What is the daily volume of things other than money that are bought and sold for BitCoins? One might see buying BitCoins as a bet on whether BitCoins will take off as a currency, but to me it seems much more like a bet that you can induce a greater fool to buy in when you are bailing out. What makes $3 a good price (and/or what makes now a good time) for the latter bet? Is there some reason to expect an upsurge in enthusiasm or an influx of new buyers in the near future? The only reason I can think of is that pump and dump scams seem to rely on a broad perception that something that costs around $1 must be cheap. Maybe we unconsciously compare it to the price of most stocks that trade in double digits, or maybe we compare it to the price of a hamburger. Of course rationally nothing is cheap based on price alone, only based on price per value, but people are irrational. So the "penny stock" level might be a good price from which to stage an empty rally.
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« Last Edit: Nov 1st, 2011, 12:25pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #130 on: Nov 1st, 2011, 8:29pm » |
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It's also kind of amusing that the headline calls it a "slow-motion" crash. The decline is only slow compared to BitCoin's unbelievably meteoric rise. For anything else you would care to trade, a 90% decline in price over five months would qualify as abrupt. If you make it a straight line, it is like losing 1.5% of value per day every day including weekends. Stock, bond, commodity, or currency traders would be in hysterics after a couple of weeks of that, never mind five months!
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« Last Edit: Nov 1st, 2011, 8:32pm by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #131 on: Jan 4th, 2012, 10:25am » |
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on Oct 8th, 2011, 9:06am, Fritzlein wrote:Today Bitcoins are trading under $4 for the first time since May. Drawing a straight line on a log scale from the $32 peak to today suggests reaching $1 by the end of the year. |
| Once again, I predict wrong. After touching $2 mid-November, Bitcoins have rallied to end the year at $5. About the only correct call I have made with respect to Bitcoins is not to bet any money on what I expected to happen. on Nov 1st, 2011, 11:42am, mistre wrote:Interesting article on bitcoins. It might be worth buying at current levels in case another bubble forms. |
| Right you were. Buying on November 1 and selling on January 1 would have been a profit of more than 50% ($3.25/$5) excluding transaction costs.
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omar
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #132 on: Jan 8th, 2012, 3:37am » |
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It's hard to make predictions about bitcoin prices. However other aspects of bitcoin are easier to predict. For example the number of bitcoins in circulation at anytime in the future is predictable. There is an interesting relationship between the difficulty of producing bitcoins, the cost of producing bitcoins, and the market price of bitcoin. This relationship I think will cause it to have many bubbles. There is a direct linear relationship between the difficulty set by the bitcoin network and the energy cost to produce bitcoins. As price starts to go up while the difficulty is low, it encourages more miners to participate. As more miners participate the difficulty of producing bitcoins go up and thus the energy cost of producing bitcoins goes up. If the cost of producing bitcoins goes up the miners will not want to sell it below cost and so the market price of bitcoins goes up. This can cause a fairly rapid rise in price. At some point those who are speculating on bitcoin decide they want to take their profits and start selling bitcoins for prices less than what miners can afford to sell at. This causes a panic and miners also start selling off as well as pulling out from mining. This causes a fairly rapid decline in the market price. Even though the prices drop and it's less profitable to mine, the difficulty eventually drops to a point where it is profitable to mine again. Speculators notice that the price has hit bottom and start buying again; and the cycle repeats.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #133 on: Jan 8th, 2012, 11:43am » |
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Thanks for the description of the dynamic. on Jan 8th, 2012, 3:37am, omar wrote:Speculators notice that the price has hit bottom and start buying again; and the cycle repeats. |
| Except that the last step of the cycle (the repeating) might not happen
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omar
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Re: Bitcoin digital currency
« Reply #134 on: Jan 9th, 2012, 11:25am » |
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on Jan 8th, 2012, 11:43am, Fritzlein wrote:Thanks for the description of the dynamic. Except that the last step of the cycle (the repeating) might not happen |
| True, there is no guarantee that it should happen, but I think the probability of speculators not triggering a rise in the market price is pretty low when the graphs looks like it has hit bottom and is stable. I think it's just human nature to think there is going to be a rise in the price again and want to buy them up now. Given enough time it is almost guaranteed to happen. But if the price did stay stable for a very long time then merchants and consumers would become more comfortable with using bitcoin as a medium of exchange. As more people start using bitcoin for real transactions the market price of bitcoin would have to go up since there is a limited supply. The probability of speculators not jumping in when there is a slow rising price would be even lower.
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