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Bitcoin Climbs To Highest Since April, Led By Chinese Actions
Submitted by Jonathan Stacke via The Genesis Block,
The last week has seen dramatic upwards price action in the bitcoin markets, driven by a series of macro and micro events across the globe. The fallout from Silk Road’s closure turned out to be but a blip in bitcoin’s price history, with significant gains since then. Turmoil in global financial markets and recent news of leading global websites accepting bitcoin may have bolstered enthusiasm for digital currency, but most interesting may be CNY’s definitive recent price leadership.
Compared with prices before the brief Silk Road drop, bitcoin exchange rates have climbed 14% in the last two weeks. At $145/BTC on Bitstamp, bitcoin has reached a level not seen since late April, and the only time that level has been reached on more than three consecutive days was from April 3-11 during the bubble.
Notably, the market has been significantly less volatile leading up to this level recently, compared with April. The 3DMA volatility leading into this level previously was between 13% and 22%, compared with just 4% currently.
US Events
A number of factors may be driving the latest climb. For one, bitcoin price increases are known to often coincide with media coverage. Accordingly, even the Silk Road closure which highlighted bitcoin’s use for illicit purposes may have helped drive new participants into the market as a result of the exposure gained. The recent Money 2020 conference in Las Vegas may have similarly driven interest from a number of established financial players.
The global macroeconomic environment may be playing a role as well. As we’ve noted previously, bitcoin shares a generally inverse relationship with USD, an asset that has been negatively impacted in recent weeks as a result of the US debt ceiling impasse.
Chinese Events
Perhaps most important was the activity out of China. The Chinese government has recently been more vocal in its ongoing campaign to see the dollar removed from global reserve status. While such calls for an international reserve note are generally assumed to refer to Special Drawing Rights issued by the IMF, it may have bolstered enthusiasm for bitcoin’s apolitical nature. Also out of China was news that Baidu, the world’s fifth largest website, is now accepting bitcoin for certain services.
Perhaps not incidentally, CNY price movement has been a notable leader in the latest rally. Overlaying CNY/BTC and USD/BTC trading history, it becomes clear that USD/BTC trading has been largely responsive to the Chinese markets. The graph below shows bitcoin trading in CNY markets, as well as USD/BTC levels converted to CNY for comparison. Overlaid on top of them is the differential between their prices at any given time. The differential tends to normalize around 2-3% and spikes/sinks periodically with price movement. In reviewing this chart, a consistent pattern becomes clear: CNY price movement occurs first, increasing the differential, with USD catching up much later and eventually sending the differential back down towards 3%.
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Meanwhile the gold/btc silver/btc ratio continues to plummet -- see www.ounce.me . The real question is what will Uncle Sam be doing with the 29,000+ bitcoins he is now sitting on?
It is expected that they hold them as evidence while trials and appeals are underway, then auction them off to the highest bidder. 29,000 represents 0.2% of current supply.
Just like the French Connection heroin. I was a New Yawker at the time, and the word on the street was that the NYPD only kept a little as evidence prior to trial and most went into "auction" almost immediately :-)
What do you get when you hold a $100 bill between your chin and chest?
A good imitation of Steven Hawking at a strip club.
budumpshhhhhhh!!
So is the price of Bitcoin going up, or the value of the USD going down? Or both?
Travel lite....carry Bitcoins.
When you get to the border....pray you have some gold.
Gold is Equity in the SDR IPO of the next Global Financial System
http://twoshortplanksunplugged.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/gold-is-equity-in-sdr-ipo.html
Gold is good, Bitcoin is good. You should own both.
Finally, someone gets it.
PMs don't get pissed off once you download the Bitcoin client. Although Queen Elizabeth on my Canadian Maples have been giving me the stink-eye lately.
The Bitcoin client doesn't give a fuck what you own. Each has positives and negatives, the smart people see it.
Xenofrog better get learning some mandarin
pfff, bitcoins, you can't even roll them and snort charlie...
but if you don't own them, you'll just loose money... hyperdeflation should not be overlooked...
Right you are, BitStorm, PMs and BTCs being the buddy system for protecting yourself against the coming collapse of the global money and banking cartel: BTCs until the Internet kill switch is flipped (but only temporarily) and PMs to see you through that and whatever else comes along, as the world as we know it goes the way of the typewriter.
So the Federal Government will recognize the value of Bitcoin and use it as source of income. What better references can Bitcoin get?
So according to the government:
Gold = not money. Nope. Its just a relic left over from barbarians who lived during the stone age. Its anything but money, yeah, that's the ticket.
Bitcoins = money money yes this sure is money!
After all the T's are crossed and all the I's are dotted, their 29,000 coins might pay their budget for a year or decade.
"what will Uncle Sam be doing with the 29,000+ bitcoins he is now sitting on?"
29,000 bitcoins?
That is huge, in the context of things.
Maybe he'll use it to pay Biden's expense report for muffins(?)
Wait a sec.....
Everybody was touting how the gubamint could never take your Bitcoins away from you, how secure they were, how hidden from confiscation. So what's the gubamint doing with these in their possession that they expropriated, stole from somebody else?
Oh, not so secure after all, no?
Just like gold confiscation.
Jesus, people
You're confused. Talk about jesus people. ....why comment when you're so ignorant. Dread has 800000 bitcoins....and the feds cant access those without his password....and he has backups.....can u back up and encrypt encrypt your gold? The seized bitcoins were not his u clueless monkey. His 120 million is 100% safe....unless the the government tortures his password out of him.
Question: Dread has backup? How does that work? He backs up his BTC into another wallet or something? Can he activate these backups and use them, canceling out the BTC in his confiscated wallet?
If he can't do any of those things, knux is right. His shit is confiscated and useless to him.
Why do I think the Feds have Dread locked up away from any computers and without any means to access any?
And as a comment above said, if he has a copy, all he needs is a visitor to tell him to access his wallet and send those Bitcoins elsewhere. That would empty (invalidate) coins in copy of the wallet that the Feds have in their possession.
The wallet apps are pretty snazzy nowadays. The dead man's switch is my favorite option on them.
If he doesn't type the passphrase once in a while they transfer out of their hands and into a backup somewhere in a scripted fashion.
Of course the wallet doesn't have to be on his PC. It can be sitting in a server farm anywhere buried as a cron job. Or on a cell phone buried in a box. Or a sim card the size of a finger nail. Today's age and the reinvention of portable applications that can be managed on a 10 dollar thumb drive, I'm willing to bet that what they seized has nothing on it.
Yes you can and should encrypt your bitcoin wallet and make several backups.
If the copy you normally use is lost/stolen, a theif can't do anything with it without your encryption key.
You would simply get any one of your backups (USB stick buried in the yard) and you again have access to your coin.
Coins SPENT from any copy of the wallet will be "spent" from all copies. They're all the same. Your balance is recorded in the public ledger, not in the wallet per se. The wallet gives you access to your coin, it doesn't contain the coin.
The feds have the public keys (his wallet), but not the private keys (the password).
Whoever has the private keys, can unlock the bitcoin wallet.
The feds have fuck all until they can break/beat/torture the private key out of DPR
Your bitcoin wallet is not a wallet. It does not contain your bitcoins.
Your bitcoins sit in a huge pile in the cloud with all the other bitcoins.
Your bitcoins are yours because you have the keys to them.
Your bitcoin wallet contains only the KEYS that let you spend (send, transfer same thing) the bitcoins you control.
When you make a backup if your wallet, you are making a copy of the keys.
If someone else has a copy of the keys, you are sharing control of your bitcoins. This includes hosted wallets.
If someone else has a copy of your safe deposit box key, or the Musgrave ritual to find the buried Stuart treasure, you are equally scrod.
Which is a lot easier than finding where gold is.
I guess Knuks is right again.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-08/bitcoin-1-0-fbi
They need to be able to decrypt your wallet. And find it before that. It can be stored on Amazon S3 or somewhere in Russia
Fail.
Everybody was touting how the gubamint could never take your Bitcoins away from you, how secure they were...
Bitoins can be stolen, just like anything else can be stolen.
Give the reflexive hatred of BTC a rest!
I didn't think Bitcoin would survive the demise of the Dread Pirate Roberts. I guess people use Bitcoin for more than just "Nos' Awesome Rock Cocaine".
I think that very few ever used it for coke - that was just a slogan used by its enemies.
Most people I know use it as gold. That is, it just sits there, untouched, for a long time.
Junkies don't hold the value. They would buy $500 worth of BTC (at whatever price), then send it to get their hit. They don't *hold* value. Strong hands do.
I've enjoyed the BTC bubble but now it's time to get the gold bubble starting. I want to see some bankers taking dives off the broklyn bridge in their speedos.
Who cares what they are doing?
They can (assuming that guy gave them password to his wallet) sell all 29,000 at 8am tomorrow. So what?
flash crash + thank u note from China with love
If they are on someone else's USB stick, nothing. The NSA doesn't crack anything. They get let in the front door and the back door. In fact, I would say that their raw capabilities are weaker due to dependency on corporate cooperation and mainstream software. If you are not on Facebook, and you use a home grown linux distro, they probably don't even know you exist.
What is stopping BTC going to $1M ?
EMP & HERF
Bitcoin is redundant on thousands of hard drives across the Earth, and as soon as power returns you can spend your Bitcoins again. Or in a worst case scenario, you can leave the area where the EMP blast happened and go to a place with Internet access and access your Bitcoins there.
Unlike gold, which is easily detected and confiscated by government agents - you can't leave the country with your gold in a post-apocalyptic scenario.
"in a post-apocalyptic scenario" I don't think you will be recovering your BTC at all.
Gold is harder to find using government detection agents than bitcoin.
And gold will pass borders (or borders will be gone), while electronic routes will be bombed, cut or restricted at top-level servers so you can't use them at all. period. no bitcoin shall pass. None.
Nice try, troll.
I can have copies of my wallet on different continents and also protected from EMP.
Pity you can't print a hard copy of your BTC, then you might have something tangible.
http://blockchain.info/wallet/paper-tutorial
Here ya go. Three seconds of research.
... And you're left with ... wait ... PAPER !!!
With a choice between having hard copies of
http://blockchain.info/Resources/promo/bitaddress.png
or
http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/0831_gold_630x420-1358881868486.jpg
I'll choose the latter any day.
...and this is the mentality of the ignorant....
You don't have to make a choice. You can ....wait... DIVERSIFY! "But how?", you say? "Won't my PMs disintegrate as soon as I download the Bitcoin client?"
No, you silly mumpkin! Trick is that you have stores of value in multiple formats. If you go all-in with one format, you wind up becoming a "true-believer", hoping against hope that your single store of value (in your case, PMs) triumph over all.
I didn't make a choice between X and Y. I have both, and will continue to have both. I've been averaging my 1oz gold maple purchases (due to BTC) at about $200/coin this year. How you doin?
Anyways, you can't argue the numbers. BTC is here to stay, just like gold . Have fun averaging in your purchases with $.
I'm doing just fine, thank you. Most of my metals were acquired in the '80s and '90s when I was young and reckless, working for a silver refiner who paid bonuses in silver bullion when it was $5/ozt.
As far as diversification, I have real estate (including standing timber and artesian springs), art work and fine jewelry, cash, machinery, dry goods, weaponry, several mining claims, livestock and pure-bred Asian Shepherds to guard them.
Have fun with your bits and bytes.
The economy must be bad if Ted Turner here needs to moonlight as a shill on ZH.
Man, I just love all you "virtual" fucks living in your binary world, most of whom couldn't even change a car tire.
Just wait till there's bit-Tires.
What a waste.
For every such BTC at $200/each I could get TEN morphine pills or NINE silver ounces. BOTH hold value forever & both can be used for medicine & both WILL be used for barter. The opportunity cost for getting BTC instead is incredibly stupid. Before I have a chance to USE them they will be erased, valued at zero by any metric.
Nice try, troll: if everyone's grid & wallet are erased and yours aren't then you still can't use it. you need the entire network to survive for all transacting parties. Gold doesn't.
--> Brain wallets.
Now all I need is a passphrase string in my head and anyone can walk accross borders with millions upon millions of dollars totally secure. Try getting your hands on that. I could even give half the password to a very trusted family member and keep the other half, so no one knows it. Get to the other end, call up my father, reunite his half of the passphrase with mine, import the address into another wallet when I get to a computer, then those funds are readily available to me again.
http://brainwallet.org/
narcoanalysis
The law of supply and demand.
Law? Is that a "Law of the Land"?
When did congress vote of that?
"What's stopping bitcoin from going to 1m?"
All the gold mined on my home planet, Earth, works out to about 1 oz per man, woman and child. Yes? All the Bitcoin that will ever be mined works out to 0.003 per person. Go get yourself 0.1 bitcoin and forgetaboutit. The opportunity cost should be slapping you upside your head right now.
cost is STILL too high. $3 max price. Period.
Until then it's a waste of resources I need for actual tangibles like medicine, silver (which is medicine & money), shelter, etc. Within 10 years btc will be of zero value period.
Once btc hits $3/btc it will probably be 30 cents within a year after that. Garbage.
Growing trust in reserve currencies like the Dollar and governments.
What is stopping BTC going to $1M ?
More people using it.
If it gains wide use, it can go very high... though 1M seems a bit extreme.
Presume all liquid wealth is transferred to bitcoin.
$1m would imply a market cap of $12T currently.
That is less than USA national debt.
You are correct. My projections haven't included Bitcoin as a world reserve currency.
But if that did happen... this time the right guys would become rich!
No matter how many lady-boys try to reach-around us into accepting Bitcoin into our lap of currencies, it ain't gonna happen.
Agreed. Here's a serious question to Bitcoin advocates -- what prevents the governments around the world from simply making it illegal to use Bitcoin? While some may find ways around that, the vast majority of people are not going to risk imprisonment to use it.
Here's an even more serious question: What are your Bitcoins worth when the grid goes down? A Plug nickel?
As far as I can tell, if "the grid goes down" or "the lights go out", very few people would be giving up food and ammo in exchange for bitcoin or goldcoin. Under the extreme and unrealistic apocalyptic conditions we FHers dream up, I'd say all forms of 'coin' are equally useless. For the much more likely chaotic-but-still-functional scenarios, each has their place: One is better for face-to-face transactions, the other is better for long distance transactions, and both are better than being subject to the printing press.
When the lights go out, the warloards are coming and taking your house and your wife. Better don't hope on it.
I love these BTC threads. It's funny watching the death throes of failed ideology combined with outright wilfull ignorance.
Here's the typical anti-BTC argument list.
Or the idea that your PMs will get pissed off and leave if you diversify into BTC. Pro tip: you can have both. I've been averaging about $200/ounce for my Au purchases thanks to my BTC purchases.
As far as the "grid going down", "EMP", "HERF" arguments in favor of PMs? I'd be much more concerned about the atomic hijinks that would turn mercury into gold. That, at least, has been done before. It's just not cost effective....at the moment.
If that's your top worry you don't understand physics or money. At all.
The grid going down is 100% happening, it's only a matter of time. Affordably making gold from mercury is 0% happening. period.
Derp. It takes but one virus to hunt out all wallet files and erase them. ONE. And the grid will go down regardless.
Protect yourself now. Get an ugly wife and an old single-wide.
And what's even more important, your question is a non-issue.
If the grid goes down you won't buy or sell on the grid, which means you wouldn't need Bitcoin unless the grid is back or you can move your wallet to where the grid is available.
How much is shit one _sells_ mostly online worth when the grid is down?
The trick is not to have all of your eggs in one basket. Your "grid going down" scenario carries as much weight as a "broke government uses atomic energy to convert mercury to gold" scenario.
NO, grid going down happens in smaller grids all the time. In the larger grid it happens from EMP or solar flare. it's 100% assured this event is coming & there is no defense against it. NONE.
I'll see your "world-wide grid going down / EMP / HERF" postulate and raise you a "moving one proton out of mercury to make gold". One of these has happened already....
Correct. And there are countries that have done that already. But they could do that with gold as well.
No country has made Bitcoin illegal. Here's a compiled list of current legality issues accross the globle. Personally I believe the publicity of making bitcoin illegal would be, on the balance, positive for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is just massively distributed data. The private key that allows me to move bitcoins under my control to another account is just a 256 bit number. Governments will have a hard time outlawing math. They have hard enough time as it is waging war on drugs, file sharing, prostitution, money laundering and fraud.
Most made money-laundering illegal & will classify bitcoin as money laundering 99.99% of the time.
As much as I agree with you, the same could be said for Gold / Silver, or any apparatus used as currency or device for barter.
But you can hold gold and silver in your hand. If the internets stop working....
I know, which is why my money is in gold and silver, in my hand. I'm only saying, the gov could force me to hold it and not use it... which is OK, but it's not the intention which impelled me to buy the gold / silver. I still expect gold and silver to be the most trusted medium of exchange once the currency war really kicks off though.
it'll be a good tradeoff, not reading the same caveman comments from you
enforcement. recall prohibition?
Yeah, I recall everyone stopping drinking...
{rolls eyes}
Thailand already has I believe
Incorrect
Who cares if they ban it?
Same thing that prevents them from making gold illegal to use. And hey - they've already done that in the past.
Here's a serious question to Bitcoin advocates -- what prevents the governments around the world from simply making it illegal to use Bitcoin?
And what prevented governments from making pot illegal? Somehow that never went away, and the insane laws are now failing away.
Same thuggery, same eventual result.
Nothing prevents the government from attempting to ban anything, including gold, like say 1933 USA. What's your point?
The entire world can ban bitcoin. The entire world can NOT ban gold: may as well ban food too. It would be nonsense.
Bitcoin is math so you would be banning math. I assure you nonsense never stopped anyone from banning anything. In fact lately it seems the more nonsensical the ban the more likely the govt is to enforce it.
It suggests it's bitcoin/everything but the usd. The world perhaps seeing the US and it's currency as a bucket of dogs vomit. Policeman of the world has morphed into corrupt policeman of the world. Sad really, it was a nice constitution.
Sadly most ZHer's have dismissed Bitcoin.
Bitcoins are better than USD, but I'd still rather have gold than either of them.
Until the lights go out....
If the lights go out, you're not getting USD out of your checking account either.
That's yet another reason to get the fuck out of the banking system.
Testify!
This is confusing.
Is that supposed to be an argument against bitcoin?
No, it is an argument against the banking system.
It is & your confusion is your problem. It's the solution to the smart among us.
You don't even need lights out for that. Bank holidays will do it too. Ordered by a government.
I recognize the possibility of such events, but how likely are we to see a complete apocolypse? If the lights go out, you've probably got bigger problems to worry about than how much physical metal you got. If it really comes to that point, it's not about gold, it's about food, water, medical supplies, gasoline, ect. Bitcoin is about if the lights stay on. I hope a vast majority of ZHer's aren't complete doomsdayers, but I suppose most of us recognize the possibility.
Plus, far more businesses accept Bitcoin than gold/silver.
Far more people in the world accept Gold/Silver, than BTC. There's probably nothing in the world that has greater "brand recognition" that the metals...they're right up there with Jesus Christ.
I've backed away from bashing the Bitcoin crowd, but it's still not for me.
And just where are these businesses & what critical goods can I get?
Food?
Fast food?
waterproof jackets? Work boots?
How about morphine, Tylenol, ibuprofen, or penicillin?
Anything by way of chainsaws, hammers, screwdrivers, lumber?
Anything useful at all?
where I am it's the opposite.
#1 very likely
#2 that's the eventuality I'm preparing for
#3 food, water, medical, tools, shetler ARE what we buy with gold & silver later which is why we need to have a mix of all of the above. Tangibles.
Nothing else.
Me too. My problem with BTC is that it is dependent on an entire infrastructure (electricity, networks, computers, etc.) which is beyond the control of the individual.
So is almost the entirety of our society.
Bitcoins can exist without being in a computer. You can write the numbers down and throw your phone and computer in a lake. Transacting in Bitcoins without a computer would be impossible, however.
I sleep well at night knowing that I don't have to rely on electrons, signals and keys to maintain a store of wealth. A shovel, or even bare hands, is the only tool I need.
Here's my "mining rig":
http://s1296.photobucket.com/user/incompletefusion1/media/Picture297_zps...
For the 192nd time, Bitcoin is not a store of wealth.
That's funny. I've seen your "wealth" declining lately, while the value of my "electrons" has skyrocketed.
One of these days you geezers will learn what makes Bitcoin special, but by the time that happens it'll be too late - the price will already be higher than gold's.
I'm in it for the long haul, not short term gain. Time will tell. Good luck.
I'm glad people like this will never own crypto-currency. It's not for you. I get it. Just next time try doing a little topical research before spreading the stupid. (Unable to print wallet, for example)
You forgot to add "virtual" to the "wallet". In the end, what you print is still paper.
I know BTC isn't for me, as I like to deal with tangible assets, not some fleeting electrons stored in an imaginary cloud. I suppose I just lack faith in the infrastructure required for BTC. That is, I argue, its greatest liability and presents quite a significant counter-party risk. I don't fall for the normalcy bias in assuming what is here today will be here tomorrow.
Good luck.
Yep, and some of the most valuable things in the world are on paper. As much as you dislike "fleeting electrons", it's everything and everywhere. You own stock? Unless it's on paper(gasp) certificates, it's ones-n-zeros on your brokers database. You got a bank account? Same thing. You got gold/silver/pure-bred Asian hunting whatevers? That's great. You can clink em and clean up after em.
I know BTC isn't for everyone. Frankly, I don't care. But people just can't dismiss Bitcoin with ridiculous "grid" and "Mad Max" scenarios, or comment about something without doing an ounce of fact-checking. It's laughable. Bitcoin is the next iteration as a store of value, and it's taking on a life no one could have even fathomed three years ago.
Good luck to you as well.
Clean up after my dogs? No, they clean up after me!
I do have a checking account with $0.02. I only use it as a conduit for deposits, then I either spend it and/or withdraw the cash. I liquidated all my equities and other paper a while ago.
BTC is a nice idea and all, but it's a little naive to think it bulletproof. You seem to have a lot of confidence in the infrastructure and the will of the cartel villains. But eventually that will be your problem. I guarantee you.
LEAST valuable.
They all go to zero in the end.
They also can't be bartered on the spot for food, shelter or tools. Or medicine.
Looks like an insurmountable problem.
I'm able to get food, silver, barter one for the other, hammers, screwdrivers, etc., all with no grid.
In fact I'll need them all for a no-grid life for many decades to come.
Sounds like BTC = fail.
WTF!!!!!
How badly has our educational system failed us!!
Why can't people just do a little research and learn WTF money is????
BITCOIN IS NOT MONEY, the US DOLLAR IS NOT MONEY!!!!!!!!
BITCOIN is a "digital note" while the US Dollar is a "paper note".
Just read it on each and every denomination of US Dollars: Federal Reserve NOTE.
It doesn't say Federal Reserve MONEY, it says Federal Reserve NOTE.
It's a FUCKING NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Signed by two Fucking bureaucrats and adorned by some scribles!
They are Fucking Notes, Notes, Notes, Notes, Notes, Notes, Notes, Notes ...
It could be looked at as money since it takes work to harvest them. However, any number of new digital currencies can spring up just by copying open-source bitcoin software, and there are several digital currencies now. Today's favorite digital currency could be just a fad. Then there is the problem of govt backdoors in supposedly immune operating systems, and microcode in computer chips.
Anybody can make their own version of Bitcoin, but people will always use the original because of the network effect.
Like the network taken down by solar flare OR emp?
"It could be looked at as money since it takes work to harvest them."
But it doesn't take any significant amount of work to CREATE BITCOINS.
Just like with the US Dollars which the Federal Reserve PROMISED not to print more than 35 per ounce of gold and then printed (is printing) as many dollars as they want.
The temptation is just too much, "money for nothing and chicks for free"
And it will be just the same with BITCOIN, the temptation will just be too much, one day, and the "webmaster" will just print a bunch of BITCOINS and cash out.
Agree. The software has been updated to address bugs, proving it can be changed by keystrokes, and the identity of the webmaster is unknown.
The software can't be changed by keystrokes. It can only be changed by consensus.
And the identity of the webmaster is irrelevant.
A consensus of crooks conspired to print too many dollars. We have to then trust an unknown consensus not to add BTC with keystrokes.
The "webmaster" (very stupid word to use, by the way) has no power to create bitcoins. The only way to create new bitcoins is to invent your own bastardized version of the currency and somehow convince the entire world to use it.
Call the FRN a "note", call it macaroni for all I care. All I know is the FRN is spendable on pretty much everything and if I dont pay my tax bill (inluding $95 Obammacare penality) in FRN, I go to jail. Therefore in my eyes, it is money.
I tend to take a liberal view of what constitutes money. If it is spendable or very easily convertible into something spendable, then it generally falls under my use of the word 'money' as an umbrella term. I recall the old quote: "it's easier to exchange ganja for money than it is to exchange money for ganja". Having seen Thailand and the Philippines, I guess I would also have to concede that ass is a form of money, too. Like most derivatives, though, those options come with expirations.
There is a big difference between VALUE and MONEY.
The US Dollar has value and so does BITCOIN. A banana has value so do shoes. They are just not MONEY.
Both the US dollar and BITCOIN can be devalued by the issuers any time that they wish by simply increasing their supply.
You can do the same with gold. For example, in the late 1500's there was inflation in Spain because of the great amounts of gold that was being brought to Spain from the Americas.
JP Morgan does the same with counterfeited gold (paper gold) by inflating the paper supply of gold (Note: this will only work until the supply of physical gold at the COMEX is depleted).
The key point is that physical gold has a very limited supply. It takes a lot of resources to extract it and is coveted by humans.
Therefore it meets the most important of the requirements for something being money.
"Both the US dollar and BITCOIN can be devalued by the issuers any time that they wish by simply increasing their supply."
But in order to do this, bitcoin users around the world would have to agree to adopt the new software and have their bitcoins devalued.
Why would they do this?
"Both the US dollar and BITCOIN can be devalued by the issuers any time that they wish by simply increasing their supply."
More talk, no research. 21 million. That's it. You can have fractions of a bitcoin just like you can fraction down gold, but the limit is 21 million.
Do I sense frustration? I guess that's what happens when you're confused about where value comes from. Bitcoin is not a "note". It's a unique keypair on a globally-shared ledger. People have agreed to reference the ledger as a means of transacting value.
Money is a social convention, not a rock.
no, money is rocks.
Pure elements, easily identified & safe to handle.
Nothing else can be money.
Ever. Period. That's physical reality. All else is a proxy for gold rocks (money).
Money is the precise OPPOSITE of social convention, it is a physical aspect of the universe.
btc solves the location/movement problem. How do you travel with a large sum of money across borders? try taking your 100 oz silver bars in your carryon suitcase across a few borders/countries.... you can't sow gold coins into jackets today... :(
"How do you travel with a large sum of money across borders?"
With a "claim check".
That's what the US Dollar used to be.
If you had $35 US Dollars you could go to the Treasury, or a gold dealer, and exchange it for one ounce of gold.
you can: buttons, cufflinks, belt buckles and for that matter, in with bags of other coins.
More own them than you think. I am not a fan, but I own them. I don't use them for purchases, other than a couple I did just to see how it works. I've also traded Bitcoin in a Mt.Gox account against the dollar- just playing around. I have no idea how to value it, so I basically just "guess" when it seems a bit low or a bit high (right now, at 183, it seems a bit high, probably related to the recent news about it).
And I realized recently.... Who am I going to have to pay capital gains on my trading? Japan? I know the US doesn't even know about the account or what's been going on inside it.
Good for ya!
The US doesn't know but MtGox does so watch out.
I 've got few for my kids stored in BTC Armory and backed up . .... .
That money writen off . I can not see any other way to fight this system
of fractional banking
This article has old data. BTC is $166 on bitstamp (~15% above the figures quoted here).
Yes, certainly not complaining about a %70 return over 2 weeks. Sold to cover my investment, holding the profits in BTC.
Congratulations on your winning trade with BITCOINS.
There is no disagreement that speculating in BITCOINS can be profitable.
Just like if you are trading stocks, bonds, pears, whatever.
The only argument is that BITCOIN is not money.
Even when the US Dollar was backed by gold. It wasn't money, it was just a "claim check" on money.
Don't use bitstamp, use mtgox.
To the fucko who downarrowed me: BTC180/$ right now on mtgox.com.
MtGox (still) is the most liquid exchange.