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As BitCoin Touches $400 The Senate Starts Seeking Answers... As Does The Fed
Moments ago BitCoin hit $395, and will likely cross $400 in the immediate future (the chart looks a little less scary in log scale).
So as more and more pile into the electronic currency, some due to ideological reasons, some simply to chase momentum, some out of disappointment with the manipulated gold price looking to park their savings in an alternative, non-fiat based currency, which a year ago traded 40 times lower, the attention of the government is finally starting to shift to what has been the best performing asset class in the past year, outperforming even the infamous Caracas stock market.
Which means one thing: Congressional hearings.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will meet on Nov. 18 “to explore potential promises and risks related to virtual currency for the federal government and society at large,” it said in a statement today.
The hearing, titled “Beyond Silk Road: Potential Risks, Threats, and Promises of Virtual Currencies,” will invite witnesses to testify about the challenges facing law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and include views from “non-governmental entities who can discuss the promises of virtual currency for the American and global economies.”
“Bitcoin is obviously getting a lot of attention from the federal
government on the regulatory side,” Nicholas Colas, an analyst at ConvergEx Group, said in an interview. “Given the involvement of the currency in illegal activities, that is entirely warranted. I expect these hearings to be largely informational, which is good for Bitcoin.”
“The architecture of the system is elegant from a computer-science perspective, but hard for a non-tech person to understand,” Colas said. “Getting industry professionals to close this gap will be very helpful.”
Or not. Because the only thing the government does when its interest is piqued by something, anything, especially things that have to be looked in log-scale, is to promptly regulate it and then tax it, not necessarily in that order. Just how it will achieve this with Bitcoin remains unclear but one thing is certain: it will try.
Especially, now that even the Fed is looking at BitCoin when a few days ago the Chicago Fed issued 'Bitcoin: A primer" in which the Fed states quite simply:
So far, the uses of bitcoin as a medium of exchange appear limited, particularly if one excludes illegal activities. It has been used as a means to transfer funds outside of traditional and regulated channels and, presumably, as a speculative investment opportunity. People bet on bitcoin because it may develop into a full-fledged currency. Some of bitcoin’s features make it less convenient than existing currencies and payment systems, particularly for those who have no strong desire to avoid them in the first place. Nor does it truly embody what Hayek and others in the “Austrian School of Economics” proposed. Should bitcoin become widely accepted, it is unlikely that it will remain free of government intervention, if only because the governance of the bitcoin code and network is opaque and vulnerable.
Finally, while the Fed may be late to the game, the ECB has already made its feelings on BitCoin well-known long ago: recall from over a year ago: "The ECB Explains What A Ponzi Scheme Is; Awkward Silence Follows" in which the European central banks didn't mince its words: BitCoin is nothing but a ponzi scheme to the central bank tasked with preserving the viability of an entire insolvent continent, and a a currency which unlike BitCoin would never survive absent regulatory intervention.
So while the electronic currency is soaring exponentially as it goes through its appreciation golden age, will the one thing that can finally end the dream of BitCoin holders arrive soon: when the government, and existing monetary authorities, start taking it seriously.
Full Chicago Fed paper on BitCoin
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blow off top...
Anything in competition to the USD, or even nations seeking to settle in something other than USD, are terrorists and labeled humanitarian violators. Gold, silver, Bitcoin.... will all be managed by the war mongers.
I'd just simply prefer to hold it in my hand, on the butt end side of my shotgun.....
What will The Federal Reserve Banks, and their lapdog federal politicians, do when more people start using a local currency like the hippies terrorists in Western Massachussets?
The two main purposes of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 are: 1) eliminate competition, and 2) guarantee profits for the big (federal) banks.
I can't wait until the price of one Bitcoin surpasses the price of a one ounce gold coin. It could happen but I still think the Bitcoin will go the way of the pet rock eventually.
I still can't believe that it's surpassed a pound of silver.
You all know that silk road 2.0 has launched. I am not saying that has anything to do with what is happening, but... you can't kill an idea and all that jazz...
'you can't kill an idea and all that jazz...'
Pshaw. You can co-opt it, and then steer it where you will. If it is in a digital form, on a computer, and it can and WILL eventually be cracked and controlled. It is not a question of if, only when.
It takes more energy then what is contained in the mass of the sun to "crack" bitcoin. If only we had a few billion suns worth of energy........
Tyler, there is no capital "c".
Also, please post a bitcoin address so I can give you guys a donation. ZH has been my No.1 news source for several years.
Interesting sidenote. What date was ZH founded and published its first article? Answer, almost same day Bitcoin was launched. Good omen!
In a year from now, we'll see headlines like "as bitcoin approaches 400k senat demands another look at it".
Rally around our new currency and our hero Satoshi! This is the strategy as was relayed to me.... use the power of virtualization (Bitcoin) to induce panic into global fiat currencies. Stand on the other side as well holding physical assets. This is how we fight our enemy, the nemesis of freedom, liberty and God using both virtualization and real, physical assets.
If you stand on the side of corrupt crony-capitalism and genocide by all means hold your Federal Reserve Notes tight. May you choke on them and die a meaningless death.
If you stand for liberty, freedom and justice for all rally around the mighty Bitcoin. Watch as we take one battle after another. Some chose to make their mark in this world by grabbing a gun and killing some peon in an airport. Meaningless! We can do better and defund the entire war machine!
I remember watching as the talking heads would gloat back in 2002 during "shock and awe" as thousands of innocent civilians were massacred using "smart bombs" (most of whom did not support Hussein). I remember asking myself if there was any justice in this world for these tyrants?
We have these bastards on the run! No surrender and no retreat! Bitcoin to $1,000, Bitcoin to $10,000, Bitcoin to $1,000,000 and Bitcoin until we break them and put them on trial!
"Moments ago BitCoin hit $395, and will likely cross $400 in the immediate future (the chart looks a little less scary in log scale)."
Not to worry....bytes 17-34 of each bitcoin signature says it is redeemable in a fixed quantity of gold, 1 gal of oil (courtesy of the US/Saudi mutual self-defense and extortion treaty), or 1 oz of low-radiation flounder.
It is definitely neither a ponzi sheme nor currency with no intrinsic value.
They'll tax and regulate it...
And do note that the committee looking into this has Homeland Security in its name.
They'll just find out who owns them and send aforementioned Happy as BitClams in Bytes off to Freedom Rings Eternal Elation Camp #13
Sat what you will, but once this becomes the province of UKnoWho, it's gonna end badly.
This cannot be allowed to persist, a threat to fiat oligarchy neither controlled taxed or manipulated.
ooooh! This big scary gubbmint gonna get me! I am quaking in my boots!
Well definately the Fearless Leader will want bitcoiners to pay capital gains.
Just pay the bastards virtually and we are all good!
I don't see a good outcome for bitcoin once the govs become involved - unless the committeee can be granted options at a great price - wink wink, nod nod, say no more, say no more.
If you honestly can't figure out to hide any "gains" you have made in Bitcoin from the tax man I can't help you.
I admire your enthusiasm fs, your goals are outstanding but I think the platform you are using to achieve those goals will not work. I hope you aren't all in. This money seems very volatile on a Saturday evening, going up and down like a yo-yo. I think I will continue to save my profits in something I can touch.
Stack On
Well I am definitely not "all in" on Bitcoin and as I stated above I only view it as part of my portfolio. It may be the first crypto-currency on Earth but I do not know yet if it is the one that survives. What I do know is that Bitcoin is the most revolutionary and advanced currency in human history.
Can I pay my taxes with Bitcoin?
Everything you know about money is wrong.
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2013/10/everything-you-know-about-money-is...
Hey
fonestar,
how's
the
weather
in
tel aviv?
Bitcoins, the new Bre-X.
"risks related to virtual currency for the federal government and society at large,”
Aha! This is the new terrorism.
War on poverty.. war on crime.. war on drugs.. war on terror.. war on virtual currency..
War! ....it's a good thing.. things must be killed in order to save things.
oo.. any body see were I left my last dose of soma.
On SilkRoad.
"money is a medium of exchange"
YOU FREAKING FED IDIOTS..
ok.. so no longer a store of value, but infinitely divisible.
take your USD and stick it.
(oh.. and back in 1910 JP Morgan said something to you fed fools about money and credit.. look it up.)
As an older person, I am returning to the basics..
Non-GMo and Organic foods.. the garden.. the local church..
..that having been said, I have to be returning to my Auto-CAD on the 8 core AMD with 64 GB RAM and 20 TB BU so as to model the little steel 3D deposition project I am working on.
.. so as i was clipping the grasses from the east side of the deck facing the golf course, i was wondering..
should I plant a few new perennials or image and upgrade the 512 GB boot SSD to 1Tb... ?]\
oh.. and FU Bernanoyellen and your fiat scam which has marginalized my attempts to store value in the near term.
butt.. surprise.. surprise .. surprise... I have as much staying power as you.
gosh.. that felt good.
I refuse to try to save in fiat. Screw that. I saw what happened to my grandparents' and parents' savings so I drained my 401B and sold my house. I drained my bank account shortly thereafter and bought small, valuable stuff that has more than doubled in value since then. I saw my grandparent's and parent's savings dwindle to next to valueless over the past 50 years. My 82-year-old mother is concerned that there won't be anything left to leave my sisters and me when she dies, but I told her that was the point and inflation was engineered deliberately in part to accomplish just that. My grandparents were small business owners and well-to-do by '50s standards. They had what was considerabled a respectable amount put by, but there was barely enough left to bury her by the time my grandmother died and she was only in the nursing home for a few months.
"Small, valuable stuff" <-- Jewels? Baseball cards? PMs?
It is hard to see how Bitcoin can avoid being targeted by increasingly hungry and control-freakish governments, not to mention ISPs and other vested interests. The problem with artificial scarcity is that it's artificial: the same types who manipulate energy supply and old money will jump all over this. It's a psychopath's dream. "Now you have it; now you don't."
You're right, Knukles. Any investigative body with the words "homeland security" in its name means be prepared to be seperated by whatever item you have chosen to invest in other that fiat currency. Wall Street....I mean Washington DC, will have its cut if not all of it.
"Place your hand on the biometric reader! Now show me your papers."
Over.
Could you imagine the shitstorm in the US if bitcoin ATMs were set up here as they were in Canada? The police in full riot gear would be right there to 'protect our freedoms".
Good Morning RSloane. This remains the reason I am watching bitcoin from the sidelines. I will believe it is the real deal when Uncle Sam declares all out war on it and starts throwing people in jail. As long as it is a cool crypto currency for the millenials I am uninterested. The day those millenials are labeled terrorists and get in the cross hairs of every agency of every country, I will warm up to it being the real deal.
Good morning Fonz. Happy Sunday. I think what alarms the gov't the most is that the existence of bitcoins is a clear signal that people have little faith in their manufactured and debased currency. For the very same reason, downward pressure on precious metals will continue. I agree with you though, people are going to fall into the crosshairs and be branded as traitors, or terrorists, or whatever the perjorative du jour is. In the meantime, our cousins to our North now have bitcoin ATMs. Of course our government may "allow" their existence for the purposes of taxing the hell out of them.
.gov is going to love bitcoin. It's a historical record of all commerce. A tax collects wet dream. No blackmarkets or the FBI takes your bitcoins.
Over.
WTF are you talking about? The blockchain DOES need a historical record in order to function. Theses addresses in it are not tied to specific individuals.
With government survelliance of the Internet, don't you suppose that the addresses ARE tied to relatively specific individuals? I mean, seriously, as soon as you submit a transaction or even look at your balance from IP address X, the gov't knows that transaction was belonging to IP adddress X (maybe even MAC address), and then they just look at email logs or ISP records until they know who was at IP address X at that time.
Unless you do all of your Bitcoin operations under a public Internet access point (the public library, public WiFi hotspots in stores, etc) with lots of other people doing their own Bitcoin operations and NEVER at home, the gov't is watching and already knows what you've got regarding Bitcoin.
I have a lot to learn. I thought the big advantage (other than limited supply) of bitcoin was that business could be conducted outside the grasp of the IRS. I need to do more homework.
Check this out.
http://nypost.com/2013/11/10/mayhem-at-bryant-park-innocent-teen-struck-by-gunfire
Why be rich in NYC metro anymore? Go to the mall, get shot at, go ice skating in Bryant Park, get shot at. Cruise up the west side in your range rover on a sunday afternoon........
and they just got Diblasio. The city is toast.
Hey I had asked you a question the other day re: equities. not sure if you saw it. I had a thought for you that I can't get into on here. If you are interested send me an email at fonzyfonzanoon@yaho.com.
Have a good day, my daughter is up, time to get movin.
It's NOT a limited supply.
.
.
.See->
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-09/chris-martenson-warns-there-not...
Like USD's you can print bitcoin to infinity.
durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
No, you can't print unlimited bitcoins. The algorithm sets the rate of increase in bitcoins at 10% per year, regardless of the number of miners.
It's exponential.
10% of a hundred is what?
10% of a million is what?
10% of a trillion is what?
10% of a trillion-trillion is what?
I'll be emailing you either later today or tomorrow. My family is now up as well and we have a busy day planned. Have a good one, Fonz.
Bitcoins effectively provide a means to transfer relative value during financial transactions – BTC can serve as currency. But to invest value in BTC for long periods of time may be risky. Crypto-currencies (CC’s) are an upcoming wave for mankind and will serve an important role in freeing society from excessive government control, but I believe CC’s will serve fundamentally as a transaction medium, not as a store of value. In other words, as technology changes continuously over time, so too will CC’s, and therefore some CC’s will rise in relative value while others are falling. The bigger-picture objective will be for citizens to keep their savings invested in entities that have a long-term history of holding value (or growth in value). If you trade value for CC’s and hold onto the CC’s for long term, you’re simply speculating.
Right now, Bitcoins are traded relative to U.S. Dollars and other fiats, and people evaluate BTC value relative to U.S. Dollars. Someday, BTC and other CC’s will be traded relative to other benchmarks – you can count on that. For now, however, there remains a fundamental problem when Bitcoins are tradable for USD’s, and here it is in a nutshell: The fact that USD’s may be created out of thin air and traded for BTC’s, means that the entity creating USD’s may unduly influence the value of BTC. If I were the Fed, and I wanted to destroy confidence in BTC, I would simply trade USD’s for BTC in an erratic manner. I’d buy BTC steadily for a period of time, thereby purposely creating a parabolic ramp upwards, and then sell them suddenly, thereby slamming the price downward dramatically. As long as people are willing to actively trade BTC for USD, the Fed could continue that process for as long as desired, thereby wreaking havoc with confidence in BTC. In order to be widely used and accepted, BTC needs to stabilize, and the Fed probably won't allow that. Yes, the Fed must be willing to lose USD’s overall in that scheme, but that’s trivial since the overall cost of the manipulation is relatively low and the Fed may create USD’s with simple keystrokes on a computer.
Someday, when the USD fails and is replaced by another benchmark (e.g., gold), the manipulation of BTC value will be much more difficult/costly. In other words, the manipulators will need to trade gold for BTC, and that will be a game changer.
BINGO.
And each time it raises more awareness and BTC rises to a new all time high from the previous pump and dump. Gee, sounds like that strategy works about as well as QE. Do something that helps you in the short term and hurts you long term.
It's interesting how easy it is to subsitute gold for bitcoin in HH's italics.
Gold, the value of a home, land.....anything can and will be manipulated.
That would be the most awesome game in town.
Sell to the Fed exepensive coins then buy them back cheap. Cool.
fascinating thread..
I wonder how many realize that the real issues here are full faith, credit, and coercion.
Great analysis, thank you. People, BTC is not a store of value. It is an ultra convenient and anonymous currency in its early infancy. While it should ultimately prove more stable than bennybux and ruppees, in the short term it is going to experience crazy volitility, not the least because of what PathForward mentioned above. It will settle down eventually but for the near future it's going to be a wild ride. Big opportunity for those who like to play dangerous games with big potential. It is the future though... a future one step closer to freedom from insane state actors and all their attendent ills.
Yea, it's anonymous until everyone's in it, then .gov confiscates all blockchains that engaged in transactions in the US. Why? You didn't pay your transaction tax. To get your Bitcoin back you must prove that it's yours.
Good luck suckers.
Over.
Hey if you are gonna have an opinion could you at least make an attempt to make sure it's not based on complete bullshit before you spew it all into the comments? There are bitcoin skeptics in this thread who are asking legitimate questions as opposed to just making up nonsensical disinfo and pretending like they did the research.
Bitcoin is currency. Bitcoin is a fiat currency. Your statements are invalid. Bitcoin...ah bitcoin, ushering in the new currency of the world! Not a moment to late...
Bitcoin to $1,000, Bitcoin to $10,000, Bitcoin to $1,000,000 and Bitcoin until we break them and put them on trial!
Read an article recently that the cost to mine Bitcoins is increasing as the required compute power (and thus the cost of the computers to do the work) has been growing rapidly. In other words, the input cost to mine the Bitcoin is increasing.
This equates to human productive effort in one form or another, which comes down to energy required.
Thus
It's about preserving one's productive efforts at fair value for those efforts. Bitcoin will find its equilibrium (notwithstanding other influences) relative to other stores of value.
Would be interesting to know, in the above-described energy perspective, what the equilibrium value of Bitcoin to gold is.
Perhaps that's exactly what's happening: an equalizing of mining the two, relative to the available supply on hand (and any extraneous risks?).
the senate can demand "green eggs and ham", cause it wont amount to a bucket of fuck.
much like the program Smith, bitcoin has grown beyond the control of the matrix.
I am pretty sure it's not a real "currency" until strippers and hookers start accepting it... Just saying.
http://www.birminghamescorts.co.uk/bitcoinescorts.html
LOL! My friend, our time has come:
http://www.reddit.com/r/girlsgonecoins
Do you now accept Bitcoin as REAL "currency"?
You can make a cryptocurrency but you can't make your blog print out in a readable friendly fashion?
Oh brother.
Over.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/do-you-read-zero-hedge-review-zero-hedges-most-popular-articles-all-time2009
Every time I see Tyler's capitalisation of "BitCoin", I can't help but picture him as this old person squinting at the screen, typing with 2 fingers, rambling "bit...coinnnn".
"It takes more energy than what is contained in the mass of the sun to 'crack' bitcoin."
And unlike the sun, Bitcoin is completely decentralized and will thrive where the sun don't shine:
http://inventionmachine.com/Portals/56687/images/Infographic_deepweb2.png
So forget the volatility of Bitcoin's infancy, and BTFD.
ehm. The blockchain has to be shared by all users.
Try sending a transaction to 40 million computers.
Now try it with 1 million transactions per day.
Wait! I know! We put the block chain on some centralised computers and we don't need to distribute the transactions... blah blah blah.
What I am saying is that Bitcoin doesn't scale, and/or Bitcoin will become centralised, maths, the blockchain and the speed of light guarantee it.
Scalability is a genuine issue facing the blockchain. I believe as the price of Bitcoin increases, that in itself may help mitigate some of the scalibility issues (or perhaps not as it is divisible down to eight decimal places).
There may come about a way of truncating the blockchain for smaller transactions as well.
Or - as much as I hate the idea - some type of clearinghouses, reducing the overall amount of transactions.
central clearing is antithetical to the bitcoin design and antifragile philosophy. instead, the blockchain will be distributed redundantly, so that no computer needs to store more than a tiny fraction of the whole, and a relatively small number of computers will suffice to reproduce the entire blockchain. however, this won't happen for a couple of years yet.
Time, quite literally, will tell.
And time is running out.
Time will tell, that Time is not running out.
Time - The Destroyer
I hope the bitcoin central clearing house is located in israel, it's the most safest place for it, no? They have nukes and lots of einsteins. After a while they can sell the transactional data to taxing authorities around the globe and seize bitcoins from those who do not obey.
Heil bitcoins!
Over.
There is no central clearing house. That's the whole point. Since none of us Bitcoiners trust any other Bitcoiner, we all act as The clearing house.
How idyllic, it's like the Jesus of currencies and you're a prophet. Or are you THE **profit**.
The code can and WILL be changed. Count on it sucker.
OMG, yes the code can and will be changed, that is the entire point. It can adapt if necessary. Thing is everyone has to adopt your changes. You can't go in and just set up QE infinity and expect everyone to jump on board. Unlike fiat, it is a system based on participation not force. People have already tried to fork bitcoin into unlimited coins edition and failed. I am sure they will try again in the future and fail some more. I can print my own dildo dollars and claim them to be compatible with USD but will anyone listen to me if I don't hold a gun to their head? Thing is if the day does come that somehow everyone goes full retard and mutually agrees to remove the bitcoin limit then there will obviously be plenty of fools around allowing you to get out of the system.
heheheh, in the year 2140, ZH headline "btc mines closing we'll change the code, that motherfucker satoshi how he could knew how much bitcoins would be nedded, we need to stimulate economy, add more 50 million bitcoins"
What if the power goes out?
Permanently, or just for a few minutes?
An elegantly simple question that cuts to the heart of the matter.
The power would have to be out for the entire world to completely stop Bitcoin.
However - same question, but for banks. How will all those Dollars get distributed?
Power goes out, a strange and eire silence fills the air. I open my safe and look at all the pretty shiny glowing in the light of my LED flashlight. No panic here bro.
Over.
Transaction fees will rise until the market finds what it costs to get included in the next block.
Bitcoin could handle all of VISA's 2000 transactions per second today with no modification. It is currently no where near this number and by the time it gets there it will be able to handle much more than that.
Except Bitcoin has been cracked more than once already, and I can't believe you idiots still believe that shit is secure with how many breaches it has had.
When has Bitcoin ever been cracked? Bitcoin is the name of the system, not the underlying protocols. Are you talking about SHA1? SHA-256? When has that been "cracked"?
Do you know what you are talking about at all? Who is the real idiot here?
I think he's referring to the theft of bitcoins.
Because theft never happens in the circles of the big Wall St banks.
Which wasn't my point at all, my point was that it isn't secure and people shouldn't trust it because they assume it is secure. If they are going to trust it they should trust it for the real reasons, which is that it's a limited availability currency that is not directly controlled by a central issuing "authority".
The same reason why gold and silver are trusted.
Running around saying it's to be trusted because it's secure only opens the logical loop-holes in that fallacy within it's history of issues, and the obvious fact that it requires the internet to function. Which means counterparty risk of it's main competitor, the government. So it's obvious that security is not the real reason why people are interested in it, or even using it.
Oh, let them run amok with scissors if they must
Oh right then, but then you completely failed to explain how BTC has been cracked. *crickets*
Last I checked, bitcoin was still around. So regardless of how severe YOU consider the breach to have been, APPARENTLY everybody else is just not as smart as you as they still keep trading in bitcoin.
Who the fuck is 'everybody'?
It seems the vast majority of 'everybody' apparently wants nothing whatsoever to do with this.
And I can assure you the HE/SHE is not alone in considering the breach to be severe.
Judging soley by the numbers HE/SHE are feeling more and more alone every day :(
But you're right, that was an egregious abuse of an 'universal'; shame on you EK!
.
Does anyone know how much bitcoin was used in the past year to purchase goods and services and how much was used to purchase fiat currencies?
No. That would be impossible to find out. The Blockchain does contain every transaction, from some address x to some address y, but doesn't say what the transaction was for or who made the transaction. I can be sending a transaction to my other address, or to a stripper for services rendered, or to somebody I am purchasing fiat currency from. None of that extra data is stored in the blockchain. Running on Bing running around here seems to think the Guv gots that all figured out but that's just crap.
Hey Wahooo. The Hound from tel aviv is running around telling everyone that bitcoin has been adopted by all world governments and bitcoin will never change the way it works or operates. The world governments have agreed that they do not want to collect taxes anymore and they want the blackmarkets to thrive.
He has spoken, it is gospel.
Over.
The real idiot is the guy that ignores what happened in 2009, 2011, and even last year. Bitcoin like any piece of technology is not 100% secure. Encryption can be cracked through packet allocation and brute force methods alike.
So obviously, someone here doesn't know what they are talking about, and it isn't me.
You could try a brute force attack on an encrypted wallet.dat. So use strong passwords to encrypt your wallet with random characters and capital letters, etc. Consider storing your wallet offline and maybe diversify into different client applications. Never send your wallet to anyone if you do forget your private keys!
If the protocols that make Bitcoin secure suddenly became vulnerable (quantum computing?) we would have much bigger problems than our Bitcoin wallets.
Quantum computing won't have an impact on SHA-256 afaik. This is not shor's algorithm space.
qc will definitely affect the security of sha-256, eventually. by that time bitcoin will have moved on to a qc-hard algorithm.
Like most things it is as secure as you make it. Gold in your personal vault is safer than gold left in your bay window wouldn't you say? If properly secured bitcoins can not be stolen, period. Someone has misinformed you if you are operating under the belief that somehow the system automatically secures your wealth for you, that is not the case, the user must take the proper precautionary steps.
Of course they can not really be stolen, they are not real.
Yeah sure, where do people come up with stuff like that? Titanic wouldn't sink either. Obama may not know shit about building a website, but I'm pretty sure his NSA masters are already on and probably in this case.
II'll still take my Eagles when the grid goes down. Good luck on the other side with virtual money.
It would take the computing power of every computer on earth 10,000 years working around the clock to crack bitcoins so good luck with that.
You sound like you're the authority on computing power. The all knowing man who has the dope on all possibilities and advancements.
You must own the chipmaker Intel. So tell me what's going on down in this hole.
http://cryptome.org/2013-info/11/intel-ug-lab/intel-ug-lab.htm
Over.
It's not a computing issue, it's a physics issue. Stop giving more credit than is due to the NSA and big corporations. I am pretty certain they haven't stumbled upon free energy yet. You sound like a kid with a monster under his bed and maybe one in his closet too.
http://miguelmoreno.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/fYFBsqp.jpg
NVIDIA was able to crack SHA-256 more than five years ago with their Tesla based machines.
It does not take a genius to figure out whay SHA-512 was released almost right before NVIDIA released the specs on their Tesla architecture.
The rest of what you might seek can be searched on your own dime.
_
a
The price isn't spiking because of Silkroad 2.0. It is spiking because Bitcoin ATMs are going live and people finally have easier access to Bitcoins.
My EMT has actually been blocked by Interac for purchasing Bitcoins. We have them running scared and I cannot wait, I mean I eagerly look forwards to government intervention and legislation regarding Bitcoin! It will backfire on them in a spectacular way and send the price absolutely soaring!
Government and their "laws" are totally powerless against the mighty Bitcoin! Federali reading this, your move! Game set match!
You're an idiot. You will say that until the homes of the creators are raided and people start getting prosecuted for using Bitcoins.
The State will go to great lengths to ensure it's own survival, including mass murder and persecution.
Raided by who? The global supranational police force? Do you think everyone who owns a networked computer lives in USA? You must be an AOL abuser.
Capital is transfered from loser to winner. Game theory. If one country (or group of countries) tries to ban Bitcoin protocol other groups could greatly profit from such a move.
Do you lay your eggs in the sand or in the tall grass?
My bet is in the sand, reptiles luv the heat.
Over.
Google and AT&T are the internet. Thinking otherwise is foolish and ignoring that the majority of the world's traffic, something on the order of 70% travels through fiber and servers owned by those two companies. They own all of that infrastructure. So who said they had to raid your house? Do you honestly think that any of this is actually secure? They tracked down the owner of the Silkroad and raided his house, and he was hiding behind SHA-256 and TOR.
I could tell you in five simple steps how to find everything about an account holder at your ISP. I can get everything from your home address to your phone number with a simple IP trace and server request that gives me a list for the range of IP addresses that you belong to and I merely have to eliminate the ones that are not you. If you have wi-fi in your house it's even easier to simply park outside each house in the range and packet sniffer my way in so I can see directly what you IP address and associate the name and address together... I don't think any of you actually realize how easy it is to get information on you through the internet, I can do all of that without breaking a single law. I can only imagine that they guys that get paid to do that sort of thing can do it as well.
I'm merely an amatuer at this stuff, as I used to have a personal interest in network security and encryption.
Sheesh, go read some of the previous threads. Why do these VERY SAME points always have to raised. Every time someone asks HOW governments will track down each and every wallet, and prosecute, it all suddenly goes very quiet. Just magic, hand wavering, and "ooh worry about that scary all-powerful government out there".
There's a fucking reason the recording industry ass of america stopped suing people. It's a losing proposition, as there's only so much wealth you can extract from one individual target - and that number is generally a lot lower than the cost of the extraction process.
Many of them are government shills.
$0.15 per post.
The FBI took all SilkRoad profits in one swoop. Lots of bitcoin, yes? Digital individual targets are easy prey. It's been proven already.
FBI will take your bitcoin, did you pay your tax? Prove it or no bitcoins returned. Did you pay for something your .gov does not like? It's in your transaction history. Now you're in jail and your bitcoins are in the kings coffer. SilkRoad to infinity.
Over.
Yet they tracked down the owner of the Silkroad through his TOR and SHA-256 that you claim is uncrackable, but I know for a fact was cracked when the Tesla cards were released.
@NidStyles you just keep being right, and I'll keep pulling multiples of my original investment out of Bitcoin.
I'm not sure people understand the wisdom in this statement. The bitcoin naysayers may talk bitcoin down, as one might talk down stocks or other investments, but at a certain point they also have to demonstrate very specifically how the bitcoin technology is flawed. Up to this point, the people trying to expose flaws are "insiders" or advocates who are working to fix them. Many flaws and hacks up until now have been based around order volume issues, bitcoin availability, and human issues like fraud/theft, but the technology itself is proving to be viable.
It is hard to understand why people must slam the only viable alternative in the world to fiat currency. A fiat alternative is staring people right in the face. Whoever prints money is the master. A global control structure has been built on making sure the masters retain their position over everyone else. Why not throw a buck at bitcoin, at the very least to spite this global control structure?
Why all the secrecy surrounding it's creator. Who is the one that owns like 40 % of all the bit coins? Always good to ask the hard questions in times like these....
Could it be a law enforcement honey pot?
Just saying/asking
By most estimates the creator has less than 5% assuming he didn't lose any back when they were worth pennies. You have to realize that like most things bitcoin was created as a novel proof of concept type idea that just happened to take off. Often times even the innovator doesn't fully comprehend the gravity of their contribution at it's inception. You may as well ask why the creator of Google has 50% of the stock shares. As for the secrecy I can assure you no one wants to be the guy proposing an alternative to the state backed fiat currencies. There is a long history of bad things happening to that guy.
beware the phishermen
Apparently there is one entity that owns like 30 + % of all the bit coins. Great story posted on ycombinator a while ago on whether bitcoin is a honeypot and the author spoke about the possibility. I can't find it any longer but I did post a link to it on ZH about 2 weeks ago.
I'm not that concerned about bitcoins failure or success. What really concerns me is Fukushima and whether we will be able to eat if things go from bad to worse over there.
Every bitcoin headline pisses me off to no end knowing i could have got in in 2011.
It's not too late bro. Get in now, support the israeli globalists build up their global currency and they will give you a few shekels and then they'll give you shackles.
Yeah!!
Over.
It's not a Fiat alternative, because in reality the stupid thing doesn't exist. It has the same issues as with other credit based currencies.
Sure I think it's great you guys are speculating and likely making a whole lot of those paper trinkets off of clueless morons that just want to transact on the Black Markets... What are you going to do when all that valuation disappears? You really think bitcoin will be viable post collapse? How is it going to be worth anything if you can not even turn your damn computer on? You can't connect to the internet?
It's simply not going to work very well.
Bitcoin is banned in Thailand.
so is criticising the king.
Some lackey's in a Thai bankster meeting said it was illegal while a legitimate business was before it petitioning for a business license. The actual legality of Bitcoin in Thailand has not been officially decided. Possibly some confusion for not paying the correct bribes... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=264330.0#post_toc_20
> ... Bitcoin ATMs are going live and people finally have easier access to Bitcoins.
L0L ... nevermind the biometrics.
Either you're a shill - or you don't see that BTC isn't any different than Google or Facebook.
You are being herded into digital currency - and lovin' it. You think TPTB aren't having orgasms over the idea of getting rid of cash?
Anyone want to buy some cadaver hand casts?
I hear there's a good market for programmable retina implants.
Re Silk Road 2.0, don't forget it could very likely be an FBI op to catch the naive and unsuspecting.
Surpassed a pound of silver? So did the Venezuelan stock market.
Fiat price vs. value & utility.
Psychological warfare.
I'd take a pound of silver any day of the week.
I can't wait until the price of one Bitcoin surpasses the price of a one ounce gold coin.
It probably will.
I'd prefer a slow and steady course to get there, but if peak and valley is what we get, so be it.
BITCOIN crash explained; why 2013 --->
http://cosmicconvergence.org/?p=13
2013: The Chinese Year of the Black Water SnakeIt is interesting to see so many who claim to be for gold and silver unable to escape their conditioning. They are still thinking in terms of "dollars", seeming unaware that is a deprecated term. Thus far, we have enjoyed the cozy phase of emerging technologies. We are now entering a phase where if you are not current you may very well have your entire lifestyle destroyed.
Do the right thing and ask your bullion dealer to accept ethical currencies like Bitcoin instead of "dollars".
step 1) fight for an alternate currency
step 2) fight against an alternate currency
I don't really see how people who fight for gold, but against bitcoin, can truly call themselves libertarian. For my money, people could be wanting to pay eachother in framed Bon Jovi pictures, and I wouldn't give a crap. As long as they didn't try yo pass them on to me.
Oh good, the Bitcoiner B team is here. Must be shift change.
"If you aren't for bitcoin you must be for everything terrible in the world!"
Does this hyperbole work on anyone?
If you hold government debt-based fiat money or bonds you are literally bankrolling "everything terrible in the world".
It was actually almost the exact opposite of hyperbole. All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter to me, personally, what you decide to pay eachother in. But lots of posters here go to great lengths to express how awful bitcoin is in every way.
But then, most pseudo-libertarians have lists of "exceptions" - usually items which benefit themselves - to liberrtarianism.
As of this post, the last trade for a bitcoin was for $345.
Are you going to apologize to any ZH'ers that you convinced to buy in at $400 or do you not take any personal responsibility for your actions?
Calm down, mother. Got any naked pics to share?
Er, what? I think you need to cut back on that moonweed you smoke. Your argument is completely nonsensical.
You have been touting gold continuously here. I guess if we were to follow your retarded argument to roads end, all those who have lost money in the meantime should be compensated by you. So, are you going to pay up, or are you somehow exempt from your own riduculous argument? I think we all know the answer to that one... or will you at least apologize? Oh, I guess not.
Meanwhile, if you examine my posts, NOT ONCE have I told anyone to explicitly buy fucking BTC. NOT ONCE. dyodd.
Oooh! A retracement back to $345? Big fucking deal! This is real trading and I for one am not trading my Bitcoin back into "dollars" EVER!!
BTFBitD!
No need to drag libertarians (left or right) or gold into it, they know what BitCoin is.
I'll say it again and keep repeating it until "everyone gets it."
If BitCoin were money or currency, the wino on the street corner or the beggar in the market could use it...but they can't, can they? Its getting to the point I'm going to have to call Bitster's "snobs" to get this simple point across...lol...which is not where I'm at regarding BitCoin's utility as a mechanism for moving ones money around.
There is no inherent value (money is only valued by people afterall) in the cloud if you can't access it.
The wino knows this instinctively (oddly enough) and I'm not the least bit interested in subsidizing his internet or device to make it work as "money" when all he's going to do is sell the device for a bottle.
Just sayin ;-)
I suppose email is not a valid form of communication either on the basis that bums have limited access to it? Are you suggesting that a panhandler won't accept a visa gift card?
"Are you suggesting that a panhandler won't accept a visa gift card?"
Thats giving access TO money isn't it?
I thought the idea was to have money with no controls ;-)