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Winklevoss Twins Revealed As Owning 1% Of All BitCoins
Think the 75% plunge in BitCoin values in two days has crushed all former supporters of the virtual currency (which truth be told is only back to levels from a month ago)? Wrong. As the NYT reports, a very unexpected supporting genepool (split into two identical halves) has emerged in the shape of two names previously linked to yet another pre-bubble frenzy name, FaceBook: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (collectively, the "Winklevii"). Following stints as Olympic rowers, Simpsons characters, and antagonistic Facebook litigants, the two 31 year-old identical twins are now indirect investors in the latest "currency" craze, whose heyday may well have come and gone, courtesy of owning a whopping 1% stake in all of the entire outstanding supply of BitCoin which at last count was worth $1.3 billion (if maybe a little less now).
An array of speculators have now bid up the price of the bitcoin to the point where the outstanding supply of the digital money was worth $1.3 billion at last count. The Winklevii — as they are popularly known — say they own nearly 1 percent of that, or some $11 million.
The decision by the brothers to go public with their position signals a new stage for what has been an experimental alternative to national currencies. Created in 2009 by a programmer or programmers known only by a pseudonym, the bitcoin world has been dominated by anonymous programmers and traders.
...
The 6-foot-5 Winklevii were unfazed by the latest tumult. Indeed, the brothers said they used the low prices to buy more. They argue that bitcoin will have much further to soar once a broader audience sees its virtues: a unit of exchange that can be moved around the world at the click of a button without requiring any payments to Western Union or American Express.
“People say it’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a bubble,” said Cameron Winklevoss. “People really don’t want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to ‘virtual currencies are here to stay.’ We’re in the early days.”
The brothers began dabbling in bitcoin last summer when the dollar value of a single coin was still in the single digits. In addition to the purchase of bitcoins, they also say they have invested in a bitcoin-related company, but declined to disclose which one. The currency itself exists as a string of letters and numbers. In order to keep their holdings secure from hackers, they have taken those codes off networked computers and saved them on small flash drives. They said they have put the drives in safe deposit boxes at banks in three different cities.
Nothing like having a string of letters and numbers in safes in flash drives in three cities as a store of value...
To some more cynically inclined observers, for the two brothers who lately have been desperate to get back into the public arena, this latest "investment" is nothing but a rather expensive PR campaign, and one which depending on their cost basis, may have already proven to be a huge loss. However, that will not step them. Or many others desperate to ride on the coattails of the next parabolic bubble:
Other Silicon Valley venture firms, while not holding bitcoins, are starting to show interest in the technology. Tim Draper of the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson put money into CoinLab, which is doing bitcoin-related projects. Tribeca Venture Partners announced this week that it was putting money into Coinsetter, a start-up trading platform for the currency.
Sadly, a somewhat notable problem with BitCoin, the currency and not the bubblicious asset, is that one can't really use it for much other than to buy more bitcoin, or convert it into fiat currencies: the same fiat currencies that BitCoin is trying to replace:
So far, few real companies accept bitcoins as payment, and the primary place they can be used is an online bazaar, known as Silk Road, where narcotics are the main wares for sale. But the currency’s believers see a future in which Starbucks and Amazon take bitcoins. For their part, the Winklevoss twins have used some of their bitcoin to pay for the services of a Ukrainian computer programmer who has worked on the site of their venture capital firm.
But the drop dead punchline:
“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” Tyler Winklevoss said.
That's funny - it is more or less what the heads of the Federal Reserve and all other central banks have said for the past 100 years.
As for the future of BitCoin? Well, if its credibility can survive a collapse like this...
... maybe it just does have staying power. Unless, of course, the other sizable "investors" are none other than the central banks the currency hopes to supplant, just biding their time until they launch the next avalanche selloff...
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Bingo. Tptb have already ruined their currency. All thats left is for people to figure it out
So many of your posts here speak about fear of the government.
Do YOU fear your government? Be sincere.
Hell yes, I fear my government. I hate to be trite, but if you don't fear your government, you aren't paying attention. I use that fear to prepare rationally for what might happen in the future. The past transgressions of governments around the world inform all of us as to what they might be planning for tomorrow, and no amount of "hoping for the best" can overcome the fact that government, at its core, is about using force against the individual.
You may call this paranoia; I call it necessity because I wish to survive.
Sounds like prudence to me.
Governments are really the result of long-standing and colossal societal compromises (and a compromise necessarily includes a sin or an error, in other words compromises are inherently wrong and need to eventually be replaced with actual solutions). So what you are fearing really is the consequences of those sins and errors, but sins can be redeemed and errors can be rectified.
Preparing rationally is a good thing to do. Judging by the amount of your posts about reasons to fear the government, you probably already spend a whole lot of time and effort preparing. But I'm not sure about the kind of preparations you are doing. If by "preparing" you only mean "protecting from the harmful consequences of the old compromise", that's not enough. Preparing also includes finding or building alternatives. You must seek alternative solutions (or at least less bad compromises) to the useful things the governments promise/attempt/pretend/etc. to do, and you can't shy away from that responsibility rationalizing that they are incompatible with the old compromise. That's what is called competition. At some point you gotta make up your mind. Choose sides.
That's the rational thing for you individually to do. Rationalizing that you are held back by other people not doing it won't work.
"owning a whopping 1% stake in all of the outstanding supply of BitCoin, which at last count was worth $1.3 billion."
Tyler, you might want to review your math...
There are roughly 11 million bitcoins in circulation, and, as of now on Mtgox, the exchange rate is BTC1 = $124.9.
The total value of bitcoins in circulation is, if my highly sophisticated math is good, 11,000,000*124.9= $1.374 billion.
So, 1% of that amount is, again according to my highly complex mathematical model, $1.374 billion*0.01 = $13.74 million
Not quite the same, eh? And another challenge for you to figure out: what would happen if the pair of geniuses decided to sell a good chunk of their bitcoins? (hint: answer is in your econ 101 book. Did you read it?)
Can you read? The "which" in your quoted sentence refers to the outstanding supply of Bitcoin, i.e. around $1.3 billion.
Can you buy a bag of weed from walmart?
No, like they did with Napster. Remember them?
I don't, actually. I never used them. Must be an USA thing. I do use BitTorrent, though.
And how is that monetized?
When money isn't involved, guess what, nobody cares.
Still, the Pirate Bay was trying to move to Sealand, and megaupload has been destroyed.
You people just don't get it yet. I live in a freakinng nation that went to war over blatant lies. I have a financial system that let Franklin Raines, Dick Fuld, Angelo Mozilo, and Jon Corzine walk. I live in a nation that downplays the fact that HSBC was money laundering for drug lords and manipulating LIBOR rates.
Don't you fucking understand yet? You're dealing with a group of thugs that would just as soon put a bullet into your head as say hello to you, and feel exactly the same way about doing either. If they feel threatened, they will shut it down, it's that simple.
I certainly do. I put a great deal of subjective value on intangible things such as information and art, which I can both find and publish for free using things like BitTorrent and others. I think I'm not alone.
So far I haven't had much concern about intermediary businesses like Napster (and one day, the central banks) going bust due to building their business models on things that are inherently free and uncontrollable, such as information and communication between free people.
I have felt no substantial difficulties acquiring information (downloads) I wanted, at least not ones related to the things you talk about and it only cost me trivial effort. If the government goes after someone/something on the net? Don't get me started on extremely resilient information and communication technologies.
Why are you so upset? Have you contributed to it in any way? Have you been personally hurt by it? Both? Well then you should be upset and do something about it.
I do.
I don't fear them.
You mean "try to". There is a significant difference.
Yeah and then subtly change their objectives as they did with drugs.
Fuck Zuckerberg.
The Winklevii also lost to the Dutch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zatmdqTYivI
INCREMENT BITCHEZ
PS Nice chart doctoring .
The Hunt brothers reincarnated.
They say they own 1%. Can they prove it?
If I list btc as assets on some gov't form, can an auditor prove that I own those btc? Can it be proved in court? Would that require revealing the bitcoin code itself, allowing an unscrupulous person to abscond with the loot?
Funny, I never thought of that.
I remember being asked in a bitter divorce to list all safes I've had access to. I listed about three dozen hotel rooms that I had stayed in over the previous three years and included the statement that some safes may have been inadvertently omitted from the list.
I just like to say Winklevoss.
These guys are as toxic as Al Gore and carbon credits.
Tyler outdoes any MSM mouthpiece in his ability to string together a mess of incoherent thoughts to profer to the sheeple. The examples are almost endless but here's my favorite:
First of all, how do you buy bitcoin with bitcoin?
Second, try substituting the word "gold" for "bitcoin".
Make sense?
A couple of years ago it was worthwhile to read the comments here. There were some very intelligent people who commented on ZH at that time. But now, Tyler is spewing mainstream nonsense, and so are the commenters. How did this happen? The saying must be true that a fish rots from the head down. Tyler refused to cover the Bitcoin for two years, and now that he is forced to, his disdain for it has run from hidden to open. The currency of the internet is credibility. Sadly, Tyler's credibility is fast approaching zero. How will he hedge that?
Given Tyler's predictive powers - like calling for immediate declines following a 100 point down day in the Dow, but then subsequently suffering a 100+ point rally -- I'm not too concerned about his take on how "dead" bitcoin is.
You're better analyzing the Fed and sovereign currencies - not so much market timing, Tyler.
I should know, I used to believe way back when I started reading here, but I swiftly learned that the longer-term stories that had research were worthy, but the day-to-day pronouncements about the swift death of the indices weren't.
The conventional financial system will fall apart in due time - that I agree with, its just his timing that is lousy.
A double pleasure is waiting for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7hwvWIK1eM
Sell
Winkleloss Twins™.
The Twin Twinks
The Fuckin' Fucks.
Saladtoss Twins?
I bet their Dad owns phyz gold and calls them up every once in a while laughing hysterical and then just hangs up.
I bet their Dad now owns even more phyz gold, and calls them up every once in a while crying hysterically and then just hangs up. Thanks to the $13M they did not have before.
There, fixed it for ya. ;-)
Oops, market reopened. Now down to what, $8M?
And, how do we know what price they bought at?
What if they were the ones buying and running it from $150 to $260, only to follow with their little disclosure? If so, they are down 50% minimum, LOL.
They thought they were being clever, but ended up the suckers holding the bag.
The only thing better would be to find out Zuck was selling to them.
Douchebags. Irrelevant.
Harvard Crimson
Two guys in serious need of a beatdown
gay? no - I meant bitcoin
you like then, no?
LVD crawled out of his hebe hole I see
brighton beach?
Only 1% in Bitcoins yes, BUT 100% IN TOO SMALL T-SHIRTS!! SHOW ME YO TITTIES!!!
Extra Medium
Schmedium.
This calls for a meeting with Larry Summers!
hold on...the Winkle Whiners only whine if they loose...
all it can be converted into is FRN. and what? such a ridiculous statement and untrue. but kudos on another bitcoin article that will generate nothing for you but lots of impressions which can only be converted into more FRNs.
...lost virtual boating
Bitchez!
I have programmed my browser to substitute the phrase 'I am inarticulate' wherever the word 'Bitchez' appear.
I am inarticulate.
BitChez?
Is that a competing currency?
They dig gold.
In that case, sign me up for 10 BitChez!
LOL. So the parabolic rise in BTC was due to speculators including even the Winklevoss twins piling in.
But two days ago people were saying that it was due to the incredible increase in BTC usage?
Sounds like the Fed more and more everyday.
The ever losing twins ...
It will be their revenge on Zuckerberg when BitCoin goes public with a market cap 10x that of FB.
What do you mean, goes public? It is not a private corporation you know.
Can you buy a sense of humor with Bitcoins?
No, but you can buy US gag writing...which is without any kind of humour.
I'm guessing the answer to that question would be no.
yeh well faceplant might have a mkt cap of $100 by then
for all the haters I can summarize your arguments
1. bitcoin doesnt have an army
2. bitcoin is a ponzi
3. bitcoin isnt gold
4. bitcoin is electronic
5. bitcoin will be manipulated
boring.
and the worst of all
6. bitcoin can only be converted into FRNs
Don't quit your day job, unless your day job is a reporter, because you did a horrible job summarizing the BTC counter-argument.
When is silver going to move somewhere. O thats right it got to $50 and got bitch slapped down to $25 . But that was ages ago it has now flown back to $27.
overlay a silver chart onto bitcoins dualing Ponzi's
Bob Dylan - All Along The Watchtower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YanjY9CsPDQ
no just think about it - some first-miners have probably mined the most easy fruits and now they want everyone else to jump onto their vagon ?
11,000,000 x .01 = 110000
110,000 x 124.00 = $13,640,000
I think they own 13.6 million dollars.
Bitcoin ain't done. Some people will become extremely rich before it all collapses. Every time a European country ends up like Cyprus, Bitcoin will shoot to the moon. That will be the time to sell. Following the BTC spike will be a crash, and that will be the time to buy more Bitcoins. Rinse and repeat.
Why? Do you think those people in Europe are really putting all their money into Bitcoins? I seriously doubt it.
Manic run-ups are usually associated with people expecting a huge rush in demand, that usually doesn't materialize.
Go talk to some retail buyers that spent millions of dollars on high tech toys that got screwed over by some rubber bands shaped like animals.
I still have a few of those fuckers stuck in my vacuum cleaner.
We might see different buying patterns once the exchanges improve their performance. And we need fewer of those investors buying and selling in chunks of 30. Anything more than €2000 and you are best off getting physical silver in the long run. This is what I pretty much told my friend even though I trade in bitcoin. Bitcoin is really for transactions, you should not speculate what you cannot afford to lose. If everyone treats it as as chump change investment, preferable to the float you keep in a bank, that is about to be templated, then there is no need to panic sell.
Two brats fronting someone else's money, with a 'mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” Tyler Winklevoss said.
Free of other people's error and politics. Theirs is evident. Conniving snake oil salesmen. Clearly, they have learnt from their elders how to shear sheep.
Only a schmuck needs to pay the likes of Western Union and American Express to move money between countries - and the shyster twins know that. Scammers.
Was Larry Summers trying to fuck them (again) over the last few days? nuff said.
the Tribe looks out for its own
ALWAYS
madoff?
He stole their money in the end.
I am curious to see what Bitcoin does when Mt. magic the gathering opens it exchange. This will be entertaining. The fucking Kpops will be like Oh Fruck srell srell srell!
As am I.
This is why they need to adopt a uniform market protocol across all trading platforms so the marketplace itself is also self regulating and decentralized. Does no good to have a decentralized currency that's reliant on centralized marketplaces.
Exactly. I was fucking around making a joke but what this exchange did could cause some serious issues. Price on other exchanges is sitting at half the price where Mt.Gox closed its exchange. There will be a shitload of orders sitting there to sell unless they open at the current price of say BTC-E. I will say this. Mt.Gox claims its upgrading it servers as one of the reasons, well, they will get a chance to see how good their upgrade has improved.
You are totally right. I checket the BTC-E exchange. It's crazy. Some people are putting in orders to sell 0.00000008 bitcoin, which comes to whopping US$0.000005! Lots of orders are for less than $10, presumably more of attempts to manipulate the price than to actually buy or sell.
Bernie Madoff is kicking himself for not thinking of this Bitcoin thing...........its PURE PoNZI
1pm: "Did you call dad and ask for more USD for our BTC? No ... okay nevermind. I got an idea."
4pm: "You sit there and I'll stand here. Let's pretend like we're making serious business decisions together okay... 1-2-3 go!"
more like -"you look gay and I'll try to look even more gay"
The only way they could look gayer is if there were four dicks in their asses and mouths.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
There at least 1,000 other people that own BitCoins. MtGox is being upgraded to a T1 tonight to accommodate the increase in traffic.
You mean the increase in sellers?
Are there market makers in BTC? What happens if you want to sell and there is an imbalance of buyers and sellers?
MtGox is being upgraded to a T1 tonight to accommodate the increase in traffic.
Well that's a day late and a bitcoin short.
Well... this adds a whole new level to the credibility to the enterprise.
Are these guys like a male version of the kardashians?
I also put my invisable coins in a safety deposit box.........ya know for safe keeping........
Twinkledose....
No... That's not it.
Sprinklergoose...?
Nononooo...
Winklerbooze?!
No0O0o... NO!!
Ehm... ok, I'm sorry - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnhWML43NI8
Actually, disagree with this point: "free of politics and human error"
Remember when that last programming crash happened because two blockchains didn't jive after an unsuccessfully update?
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-network-shaken-by-blockchain-fork/
1) Human error, right there the updated version was out but not all miners updated to it.
2) Politics, the creators of the new blockchains must create a version that is agreeable to all mining parties or else it will not be accepted. So as more people get in on it and potentially more miners - coding new blockchains could theoretically become a political battle of what benefits which miner more.
3) They forgot to add, free from manipulation and fraud especially with BCs being a virtually wild west-free for all environment.
Repeat what I said yesterday, last one out loses. nothing but a speculative bubble. First one out is the winner wonder who sold out and made a killing @ 240... good news is for anyone that bought in... there is still time to be one of the winners... for how long, anyones guess but probably not long.
So if a handfull of people,hold most bitcoins already in circulation,and if by using supercomputers,they can control the future supply,then we have effectively the creation of a new Elite.The King is dead,long live the King.
Is that it: ?
http://blockchain.info/address/1933phfhK3ZgFQNLGSDXvqCn32k2buXY8a
Final Balance 111,111.11257544 BTC
Total BTC in circulation: 11015450 (as of now; source: http://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins)
or just over 1% of all BTC...
Or maybe a combination of the other top-10?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Ladder#Top_addresses
The reminds of of the two guys who founded facebook. Eduardo Saverin And Mark Zukerberg. The are the ubermench of our society. young, aparently geniouses, branching out into all kinds of things like medical research, immigration reform. All accomplished with less than %0.0001 of their tax free wealth, largely created by underwriting from P.D.s of the fed with benny bucks.
On the other end of the spectrum, I wonder what would happen if the old gal who works as warren buffets secretary pulled a fed document release (two days ago) for bershike hathaway? She is pretty grumpy this time of year paying a 35% tax rate and all...
Here comes 'pawnship' - How I got robbed of 34 btc on Mt.Gox today
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=173227.0
This entire Bitcoin episode has been fascinating. It is playing out like Horse Armor in World of Warcraft. Pretty much run by the same people as well.
See there were really powerful items available in World of Warcraft. Obtaining them would make you a very powerful player, and you could gut noobs with reckless abandon. The problem was you had to hack rodents for hours and hours to obtain enough credits to purchase the powerful items. Tedious and boring right? Well there were sites that let you employ Chinese to take over your character and hack rats all day. When you got home a pile of credits would be waiting for you, perhaps your character even leveled up. You'd pay a couple bucks to the Chinese kid, he'd make more in a day than he would in a week at a factory. Now you go out and have some fun killing all those noobs you hate and you didn't have to hack rats for 60 hours.
Then there were trading posts where people could sell items they obtained in World of Warcraft for real cash. SO then people paid Chinese kids to hack rats all day so they could obtain items to sell for real money. What's better than hacking noobs all day, AND MAKING SERIOUS COIN!!!!
What does that have to do with Bitcoin? If you don't see the parallel, I don't think I can spell it out any clearer.
----
So you want to mine Bitcoins but don't have the right computer or the time, DON'T WORRY!!!! Buy a cloudhashing contract. You can buy a one gigahash contract and get the credit of one gigahashes in Bitcoin, one the coin is mined. Sure the contracts have been going up in price and a lot of the contract sellers don't actually have the mythical hardware from Butterfly Labs that will mine Bitcoins with reckless abandon, but don't let that stop you.
If you don't want to speculate in the market and just want to mine a Bitcoin for fun, well I've got bad news. With a CPU setup you might get a Bitcoin in five to seven years, however you most likely will never get one considering you'll never find a block with that setup anymore. Your son has an awesome GPU to play Call of Duty on his computer, you spent $500 on that thing. Sorry you're still looking at three years at least, and just like the CPU setups the GPU setups are pretty much useless now.
But you can use a Field Programmable Gate Array system to mine Bitcoins. You'll get around 800 MH/s and might be able to mine a Bitcoin if you get a few of your friends to pick up a few FPGA systems too. Of course once the ASIC systems start shipping your FPGA will be useless. The ASIC systems will run in the GH/s range and totally outclass your FPGA system. Sorry man, technology.
GOOD NEWS THOUGH!!!! ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) systems are the last line. If you pick up one of those you should be set to start mining those Bitcoins and generating a virtual fortune. Of course by the time you get your 50 GH/s system there will be 200 GH/s systems, so you'll need to upgrade. Then there will be the TH/s systems soon after that.
It keeps getting better!!!! As more and more computational power is thrown at mining Bitcoins, that harder it becomes. You could spend $250k on mining systems and not obtain a single one. AWESOME!!!!
The builders of the ASIC systems are claiming you can generate $450 per day from a $2400 system. No wonder so many people are attempting to buy them. Of course the revenue depends on you obtaining every block of Bitcoins.
Thanks for the informative...
Amber at the Ostsee will get you more of a chance (if you live there (and reading this)) to make some (soon to be toiletpaper) moneys.
Learning this is hard....
Shit, and I was about to spark up my 486...WITH the math co-processor.
I guess my TI-994A's won't do much good either.
What you need is the Sperry UNIVAC System 80 my friend, it's the wave of the future!
New show in the future, BitBusters, two guys go traveling around the country and try to use BitCoins to buy things.
Hilarity ensues.
Coming this Fall on NBC.................No Bit Coins
You have to ask yourself a question before you get into a venture like bitcoin mining.
If these vendors are selling these systems to mine bitcoins, why not keep it for themselves and control the market?
You control the supply and can name your price. And if you think these vendors are selling these systems for the greater good, then you are in serious trouble. They don't even deliver....lol. Cock suckers took your cash, bought bitcoins on the low end, and probably cashed them out at the top.
They win. You lose. Every. Single. Time.
you are on the right track....
BINGO WINNER
+1 for the post. I used to play Command and Conquer is all I can say.
Can I get 200.000 Bitcoin out ( like transfer to usd/eur/gold-coin) ?
Is this easy? I see a limit on Mt Gox for 100BTC or $1000 (I could bw wrong)
How does Bitcoin handle volume?
How does Bitcoin handle volume?
answer: Not well
i will give you 200 dollars for it..any account you nominate..i just need your
account name:
account number
bank name
sort code
:>)
don't worry this site is encrypted...honest!
Soon to not be worth a virtual tulip bulb
I'm 6'5 220 and there's 2 of me.
Stop looking in the mirror bro.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bitcoin.org#
looks like its the new punk rock..or perhaps just the old rock n roll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVglLs3uA8Y&feature=player_embedded
or should that be bitcoin is "no currency for old men!
Meh...turn on a commercial.:
http://vimeo.com/63749370
Which one is Tyler?
Bitcoin delisting
To what ?
EBay?
craigslist
We are all Winklevosses.
speak 4 yourselves
Hey shmucks, you need to hold PHYSICAL BITCOINS !!!!!!!
I used a random number generator and found 354 Bitcoins in a week!
I also sold them all at the top of 260
All hail to the Mastur Baiter , Hail Hail
I'm willing to trade 2 donkey's for just one elephant.
I'm willing to trade 2 donkey's for just one elephant.
Make and model, we may have a trade here.
My elephant does have a slight case of indigestion, on accound of eating to many titbits.
But feeding a few ripe bananas schould do the trick.
Make offer
Behold... the Bitcon Bubble Brothers.
The only thing legit about scamcoin is that the chart looks just like a penny scam.
As expected weeks ago.
Bitcoin owners = the worlds LARGEST SUCKER LIST
Ok, I was on the fence with BTC until these two guys came forward. Now I know it's all fucked up:)
This mining curve model depends on the complexity staying ahead of computing power.
And if it doesn't? It all falls down once quantum computers hit BestBuy.
Who among us hasn't Winklevossed?
Aiy, yuck
Go rince your mouth......
Foniks is fun.
If you have an invention and want to sell it to the general public, you literally need to make it "idiotproof". Bitcoin is far from idiotproof at this time. Will it always be? That is difficult to say. Most people still use Windows or Apple OS.
(Forgive the wall of text)
Dude........put in a link..........
Sorry. it didn't know it was linkable until now.
Link to above post:
http://fpp.cc/2013/04/09/9-killer-criticisms-of-bitcoin-that-are-really-just-flesh-wounds/
Well, it's too late now.
Holy Shit !!!
Now that's a wall of text !!!
Yo Frankie - Not a bad rant....but you fell down hard with this statement.
"That the market values gold is no more and no less arbitrary than that the market values bitcoin. Gold is not redeemable in anything, it is not backed by anything, it just is. So with bitcoin. Both are valued because they are useful as money. It is a common misconception to say that things are useful as money because they are valued"
Gold is not redeemable in anything ? Phizz gold at thousands of coin shoa and on line. Comex futures is a cvery liquid market. Central banks have gold reserves in order to have currency credibility with others (although this is becoming a situation which will lea to war with the left woing facsists politically in charge in Europe and US).
Not a bad article but you demonstarte a naivete regading how the financial system "works" that does a disservice to your otherwise reasonable well thought out rant.
" the currency’s believers see a future in which Starbucks and Amazon take bitcoins" - right.
Do you remember what happened when governments started getting pissed off at Wikileaks? They pressured VISA a.o. to choke off their funding. What do you think Starbucks and Amazon are going to do, resist government pressure and be indicted for aiding and abetting the use of illegal currencies thus undermining national security? Me think not.
Yeah. And people started donating bitcoins to Wikileaks.
head ----> desk
But I understand what you are saying.
"That's a nice little business ya got there, Amazon. It'd be a shame if somethoing were to happen to it."
But if I am running an online business, and I want to avoid things like taxation and regulations, bitcoin will be the only currency I accept. I can also sell products a lot cheaper than Amazon doing that. So, it's almost a lose-lose for Amazon if that were to happen. It's a question of whether bitcoin businesses can become established before the government starts doing shit like that.
That, IMO, is the real fear of bitcoin.
no, of course Starbucks and Amazon will not take bitcoins, but i'm betting the whole 1000billion arm, drug and prostitution world want to buy some coins in case they have to fly the country. I'm at localbitcoins and many people have aproach me offering their money to "invest" in bitcoins, no mather the price... Of course, i had to say no because i don't want to be involved in money laundering.
So what it's easy to move, suitcases full of money or rather a pendrive with some encripted txt worth thousands of $ each file? they don't need to change the money back to $ ever. just use it to settle transactions.
no, of course Starbucks and Amazon will not take bitcoins, but i'm betting the whole 1000billion arm, drug and prostitution world want to buy some coins in case they have to fly the country. I'm at localbitcoins and many people have aproach me offering their money to "invest" in bitcoins, no mather the price... Of course, i had to say no because i don't want to be involved in money laundering.
So what it's easy to move, suitcases full of money or rather a pendrive with some encripted txt worth thousands of $ each file? they don't need to change the money back to $ ever. just use it to settle transactions.
ByteCoins aside, I'll take two Winklevii over one Fuckerburg any day. Thank you very much.
gold pumpers are now bitcoin pumpers
whoda thunk - boy have you guys no honour?
Maybe you could start the "back bitcoins with gold" pump.....
Bitcoins backed by a physical asset is better than a fiat currency backed by a physical asset.
Ofcourse physical in hand is better than two BitCoins in the bush....
but atleast we are going in the right direction which is getting the populace to look for alternatives to fiat financial dilution...
The "Winkelvii" are naifs. If the "unseen" hand of government backs them on this, they've end in clover. But they'll still be naifs.
If there's any more proof to get as far away from bitcoin as possible, this is it.
These two jokers were so stupid they got conned by Zuckerberg. That should tell you something.
Stupid x2 is still stupid.
One Twinkeltoss brother to the other "Bite coins? What, is that like a new kind of electronic cock ring?"