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In Spain, The Bitcoin Run Has Started
Something extreme is happening in Europe. Since Sunday, Bloomberg Businessweek reports a trio of Bitcoin apps have soared up Spain's download charts, coinciding with news that cash-strapped Cyprus was planning to raid domestic savings accounts to pay off a $13 billion bailout tab. “This is an entirely predictable and rational outcome for what’s happening in Cyprus,” says ConvergEx's Nick Colas. "If you want to get a good sense of the stress European savers are feeling, just watch Bitcoin prices."
The value of the virtual currency has soared almost 30 percent in the last two days. "One hundred percent of that is due to Cyprus," says Colas. "It means the Europeans are getting involved." As German economist Peter Bofinger warned in an interview with Spiegel Online: "European citizens must now fear for their money."
The same apps download data, however, showed that Italians aren’t ready to abandon commercial banking, remarkable as many Italians still recall that black day in 1992 when they woke up to a levy on their savings accounts to prop up the nation’s teetering finances.
The EUR price for a Bitcoin has jumped from around EUR37 to over EUR50 in the last two days as reality hits... and look at the volume...
Nassim Taleb (On Reddit) - via Mike Krieger (@LibertyBlitz):
"Bitcoin is the beginning of something great: a currency without government, something necessary and imperative."
Chart: Bitcoincharts
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are you the same jmeyer that put music to "you alone exist" ? welcome to tyler's joint fuckwad...you should'a seen it when it was all fight clubish. of course, then the opinions were tighter than their owners assholes but were beyond well informed and the humor .... well i've convulsed deeply here before.
It's open source so everyone has access to the code, but who actually writes the software that controls the automatic adjustment of the rate at which bitcoins are produced?
That is a good question. Frankly I don't know the answer but if I had to speculate I'd say it is built into the network itself aka wallet software or whatever interface the method is. Just look at it from this standpoint the network is transmitting information which includes that difficulty rate. The clients on the network are also transmitting infomation like amount of coins between storing that information at the exchanges I assume they can estimate based on the coins the growth rate at the current difficulty rate. I'd imagine it also has redundancy built into to to automatically increase after x amount of time if no change is seen.
It's in the original bitcoin specification. The authors of some of the software are known, but it's irrelevant. If a block is sent into the network that doesn't comply with the current difficulty rating, it will be rejected, so people can merrily hack away, the network isn't going to let them create coins outside of the rules.
This actually highlights the only known way to subvert bitcoin: since enforcement of the rules depends on the majority of the bitcoin network, if you can control more than half the network, you could do things like spend bitcoins twice or produce coins outside of the current level of difficulty; this is generally known as the "51% problem."
The 51% problem is the achilles heel. The shadow rulers can muster enough computing power to subvert the blockchain. They can destroy bitcoin but can never own it. IMHO the time to destroy bitcoin is when it's total issued market value is less than a trillion and its concept has not entered the mainstream pschye yet. That, they would hope, will dampen or kill the emerging mainstream enthusiasm and confidence in the peer to peer crytocurrency paradigm. Bitcoin is a highly successful starter concept for this monetary paradigm. If it dies, most likely a more robust replacement will rise to take its place. The cat is out the bag and the sheeple begin to awaken.
See BTC FAQs.
As number of BTC increases, the level of difficulty (for BTC mining) also increases according to a known formula.
ahh the great Bitcoin bubble of 2014... it was a bloodbath!
that was cool. or it was the first time i ever experienced this coincidence. or a cat just ran down the stairs agian.....
but i was just able to give you a little greenie +2 !!! woohoo. tylers? dijya just upgrade my voting powers? thnx.
And more on the great bitcoin experiment. Real estate.
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/man-selling-house-for-bitcoins-...
Man selling house for Bitcoins, the first sale of its kindThe thought of Bitcoins may make you laugh hysterically, unable to carry on a full conversation about the pseudo currency. Alternatively, someone calling Bitcoin a “pseudo currency” may have you up in arms, willing to spend all your precious, mined coins on a way to silence that obvious fool. Now, you can attempt to silence that obvious fool by pointing him toward Taylor More, a man that is attempting to sell his estate for Bitcoins. Along with pizza and Amazon gift cards, you can now purchase a home with the digital currency.
More’s estate, which sizes up at 3.6 acres, will cost you $405,000 Canadian, or $1,200 a month to rent. The one story home measures in at 900 square feet, and has two bedrooms and one bathroom. The estate also features a workshop measuring in at 2,800 square feet, that sports an extra two bedrooms and one bathroom. Best of all — depending on how you view Bitcoins — you don’t need to pay real money for it.
More isn’t rejecting the idea of a cash sum. He’ll take the $405,000, but he’s willing to knock down the cash price if Bitcoins are thrown into the mix. He’s also willing to perform the entire transaction solely using Bitcoins. At the moment, one Bitcoin is worth around $60 — a far cry from the days of yore when a pizza would set you back an amount of Bitcoins reaching into quadruple digits. Now, the house will set you back around 6,750 Bitcoins.
More said that he’s accepting Bitcoins in the hope that the sale of the property would raise awareness for the currency, which it most certainly will if someone actually uses it to buy a real-life house. Check out the realty listing here, and if you need to catch up on the Bitcoin craze (if you can call it that), you can sink your teeth into the digital currency here.
Now read: Something else you can buy with Bitcoins: Mega memberships
the daily bitcoin pump. ZZZzzzzzzzz
Just in case nobody mentioned it this week: "Spooz, you are a miserable cunt, with no opinion, just an aimless desire to contradict someone."
I find the daily bitcoin pump more tiresome than the occasional Mises propaganda.
and you're observations as enlightening as a moon bat's.
I don't believe you even know the difference between 'daily' and 'occasional'.
What's your gig, why down on bitcoin ?
its still some electronic ledger entry, so what if its free for now of bankster manips
Whose Pope do I have to blow to read that- "...recall that black day in 1992 when they woke up to a levy on their savings accounts..." link in English???
Google Translate does an excellent translation. Remember that.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lastampa.it%2F2013%2F03%2F19%2Feconomia%2Fa-nicosia-l-incubo-atene-giu-le-mani-dai-soldi-oqtF8dECetVT8OjhWFX8UP%2Fpagina.html
During the last storm, I lost all my bitcoins when the lightnig struck my boat and fried the computer. and I also lost the physical cargo cargo!
How safe is your safe.....little post on breaking into a safe, cool, but scary.
http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/2013/03/safes-for-your-mullah-and-gold.html
Remember how governments shut down internet is middle east when there was civil unrest? Now with Patriot Act and NDAA our government can shut down our internet, in the name of national security, in a flash. Bitcoin = money based on a technology which is based on the infrastructure.
I'm not putting my money any place where it is dependent upon technology. Cash, gold, silver, income real estate, farm land... the government can even mess with these as well, but your chances are better than with Bitcoin.
Howq do you actually take your money out of the cyprus banking system. You wuold have to take cash and banks do not have that much cash. You would just get a cashier's check which means the money is still in the bank until you submit the cashier's check to another bank. But that solves nothing. All are Cypriot banks. Now tell us about a bank run?
Do you understand that Spain is a different country from Cyprus?
If you're caught up in the minutia of Bitcoin, I fear you're looking at the forest through the trees, IMHO. It's not really about Bitcoin. I don't care if it's bushels of wheat, Bitcoins, PMs, or swizzle sticks. It's the awakening of the sheeple and what that means to the debt slave-masters. Maybe the gig is finally up.
All electronic money is false. When will people learn?
Who gives a shit.
It's less false than the other false money, that's all that matters to those who are diversifying to BTC.
Nice to be getting a mixed poll on BitCoin finally. It took long enough. People are coming around quick.
Whether you like (understand?) bitcoins or not, there are a couple of interesting aspects: 1) when silver and gold markets opened on sunday evening US time, they both went vertical until the central banks stepped in and crushed the price down again. There is no "paper" bitcoin yet and so the current price rise reflects actual trading. In order to inflate the price or short it you have to buy or sell bitcoins. 2) If big buyers start to transfer money to the caymans using bitcoins temporarily to send the money, the price is going to rise then fall, but an upward momentum will be caused. I like the short term future but mid term is anyone's guess.
I'm not sure how to do the canoe accident with bitcoin. I think it's sort of easy for the gov to round it up if they feel threatened enough about it.
Just remember to take delivvery!
I have been on ZH for a few years now. Very few times I have seen 400+ comments. Amazing how a slow motion trainwreck brings out the tourists....
Or maybe, people who are always here but seldom comment.
Bitcoin is great for buying VPN, VPS, and other hosting services..
Good shit
This is what i said.
When you can not get gold or silver or mining shares, then you will move money to the only eletronic system they dont control, that provides you with the ability to make eletronic transfers, people still gotta pay those power bills etc.
This is about people voting with their feet, saying 'Fuck you gov't, fuck the banks and fuck your financial system. You may be able to steal from us, but its gonna be far more harder, and you cannot make me put money in your banks cos this fuka is peer to peer, so screw your sales tax too. Now how you gonna pay the cops?'.
Isn't that the problem with Bitcoin; it can be manipulated into oblivion within days?
Bitcoin, electronic fiat created by a non-existent person, or physical gold.
This is an IQ test.
IQ test rotfl, the real world is a cheat sheet.
That's not the only run that has started.
It is a global Pan-Revolution! Everyone is running over the border with all they can get out of their banks all over the world.
Where is the chart that shows the massive amounts being withdrawn from the whole ugly money god bankster system?
Give this a video a watch for ships and grins. Sorry if it has already been posted.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3pBPEw4Mc
You can run, but you can't hide. Its all going to be electronic money with GPS.
Once you have all the cattle herded up and corralled, to get them into the slaughter house you show them just one exit.
In this case an electronic money system whom no one seems to know who initiated or who controls.
I DONT UNDERSTAND BITCOIN, CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN IT TO ME? I STUDIED ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING AND THE FACT THAT I DONT UNDERSTAND CLEARLY HOW ITS VALUE IS CALCULATED WORRIES ME A BIT FOR ITS FUTURE !...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Being a cynic by nature, can anyone tell me why I should n o t think that bitcoin may be a trial run for a one world currency.
There's no problem with a one world currency in itself. The problem is with centralised control of said currency.
Indeed and of course the centralisation would be done by the UN Security council. Emphasis on Security.
Is this the loose Horseshoe that brings down the messenger's steed, whose vital information not having been delivered in time leads to the battle being lost by the Kleptocracy Clique running the world in TBTF financial oligarchy meme, against "we the people" interests ?...
Wouldn't that be an ironical and appropriate "pied de nez" of past folkloric history to current bamboozling by financialista world and its crony capitalists?
pied de nez - Recherche Google
The awesome debate between Market fears and CP decisions goes on in Eurozone : Do we penalise corrupt/bankrupt bank's stake holders (all of them Oligarchs and poor retirees) on ad hoc basis or do we SOCIALISE the debt on to EVERYONE?
The EC is now thinking along the BCG report lines and favouring the first route, (CYprus could be a trial run), while the Market sentiment, as per FED/BOE QE plays, feels that "socialising" the debt and then debasing currency is the way to go!
Hahaha! The market is just as corrupt as the current CB/EU plays!
Both sides want to protect their own rich guys...
When thieves fall out in Oligarchy world!... Statists vs private Oligarchs hiding behind the small guy meme.
Keep your eye on the ball, this game is not "black and white" like naive libertarians make it out to be; its all sorts of colours behind that curtain of Oligarchy scamming. And Cyprus is a microcosm of those swirling conflicting interests.
Hey! No worries... all the blood that's been spilled, by the powers that be, is paying off. check out http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-21/even-greece-exports-rise-in-eur...
what, they can't find any gold or silver to buy? WTF!
Seems like with us carrying our electricity above ground the grid is easy target if shtf and not rebuildable. I hear average transformers are 40 yrs old now and not made in us.
Just one observation.
If any oher currency, commodity or share showed as much volatility as Bitcoin, any sane person would run a mile from it.
Nearly all of the critiques of bitcoin I've read are either false or inaccurate. If you don't like it because its not tangible, that's fine.
"Bitcoin is not money". Nobody is claiming it to be money. Bitcoin is a currency.
"Bitcoin is not tangible." Neither are your fiat dollars. The paper bills you touch represent 1's and 0's in Bernanke's computer. People desire gold because it is doesn't require technology to transact in. As overleveraged as we are as a society, if we lose technology, nobody is going to be interested in gold. They'll be interested in whether they'll have food to eat for their next meal.
"Bitcoin could get hacked." As far as I know the bitcoin protocol has not been hacked. As the protocol has been openly available for study for years, if it were hackable I'd expect someone to have hacked it by now. The false articles titles claiming bitcoin has been hacked are actually referring to cases where someone's bitcoins were stolen or the exchange itself was hacked. Two things, a bitcoin exchange is not bitcoin. Second, improper storage of any currency leads to theft, this includes bitcoin. Leave your wallet laying around and someone will take it, bitcoin is no different.
"Bitcoin lacks intrinsic value". So does all fiat currency. The improvement is control, anonymity (if you want it), stable supply, simple and instant transfer with no fees anywhere in the world.
"They could shut down the internet". If they shut down the internet, you won't be touching your dollars either. When the internet comes back, your bitcoins will still be there.
"After the apocalypse, bitcoin will have no value, but gold will. Nobody will be interested in your gold. Guns shelter and food will become the new money.
"Governments will ban bitcoin". They can try, but like everything they try to ban, they will fail, and fail badly. They will fail badly especially with bitcoin because it was designed to be decentralized, encrypted, and completely anonymous. The only successful way to ban bitcoin would be to ban use of computers and the internet. Otherwise, technology will always be 2 or 3 steps ahead of the government. Furthermore, governments can ban anything they want, and history has shown they've banned gold, so you're not safe anywhere, but of all options, bitcoin is the something they really can't control.
TPTB depend on us borrowing fiat at interest..if you circumvent the system they'll see to it the power grid goes down
Wow, just wait a minute! Bitcoin vs fiat we currently use: here we have our old fiat approved by the government, versus a new unknown fiat issued by somebody anonymous and uncontrolable. At least, with the old government fiat, I know that government is slightly aftraid of pitchforks, and will not take away everything from me overnight, they would do it gradualy... With bitcoin, I do not even know whom to put on fire if my bitcoin digital account goes to zero overnight.
Secondly, and much more importantly, why to come up with a new digital fiat, if we already have very well known money, which nobody (not government nor private anonymous structures) can print uncontrollaby, and which simply cannot be cancelled if you have it in personal posession in physical form. It is gold. If you want to sound at least somewhat serious, please build your pro case of bitcoins comparing them to gold, not to zimbabvean dollars.
You mentioned gold in the last paragraph, saying governments can ban it. Yes, they can and they did it many times. But let's consider hypotetical example when both bitcoin and gold are banned. And you happen to have some bitcoins in your digital account and some gold in your physical posession. Please, answer in which case do you have more chances to still use your "currency", or to preserve it and its value?
Next time a FOREX telemarketer begs me to start an account I will gush about bitcoin until he hangs up
Bit coins make no sense to me. More esoteric than gold and silver. Dubious regulation and generation. Earned by non productive means.
Money and commodities have whatever value people place on them. Bitcoins just don't seem to be all that valuable. Might as well trade for something else
And the fiat money we have is really no more valuable than to the extent that we all put our faith in it, and the willingness of someone to accept that particular mode of stored value in trade. It's really the same thing.
they do have to mine them with computers so i guess that is production in that it used energy to get them...
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I hope the people bashing Bitcoin enjoy their SDRs