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Bitcoin Slammed As Baidu Suspends Payments Due To "Fluctuations"
Bitcoin is being sold aggressively on heavy volume as this headline hits:
- *BAIDU SUSPENDS BITCOIN PAYMENT ACCEPTANCE ON VALUE FLUCTUATION
And the official, google-translated announcement from the BIDU website:
This is one of the reasons Citi and BofAML noted as 'disadvantages' and it seems Baidu agrees (for now).

and as a reminder...
It appears Mt.Gox has crashed trying to handle a very large sell order... and the resulting algo mess is as follows...

Chart: Bitcoinwisdom
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Might buy a couple around 300$. not as nice as the stack though...
cheers.
RIPS
Looks like the shiny may have bottomed...
But BoA said it was worth $1300
lol
Is that BofA defending $830?
yawns or lulz... I'll take both.
.......Aluminum.
Cooking with aluminum made me the virtual man I am today.
news flash my stack of real glod and silver are unchanged, as heavy and beautiful as ever. carry on gamers.
Bitcoiners are playing the game of life. We are pirates of destiny!
Yeah, pirates! There's a medpak behind the palm tree on level 15. Quick! Power up!
Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Bitcoins.......
Bitcoin is dead!
Well, this time it's dead!!
No, this time, for sure! It's dead!!!
Well...
UPDATE----Rally in progress. Well maybe something else will kill it. Maybe.
Maybe. I doubt it.
I already watched my Bitcoins supposedly lose 100% of their value before on MtGox. I didn't really care too much.
Need to do better than a measly 20% correction to scare fonestar.
all this fluff from Phonestar and the whole time he has like two bitcoins.
Sitting around watching the volitility of a digital currency like its some sort of an investment.
Priceless.
BTMFD!!
How would you know how many BTC I own? This is about philosophy and intelligent, rational discourse amongst erudite adults and sophisticated investors.
Mt.Gox: Magic the gathering of exchange, they can handle paper card, they don't have ability to handle aglo
Yep. Bitcoin buying, selling, trading at $1,000 is almost as much of a joke as $10. So obviously Bitcoin is still so unloved that nobody can bother building some decent platforms for it.
until one day, for every fiat note in existence there will be one more digital currency be it 'bitcoin', 'shitecoin', 'rampcoin', 'worthlessfuckingnoncoin' to invest in, and none of them worth a light...
Then everyone moves to gold.... Oh wait...
"This is about philosophy and intelligent, rational discourse amongst erudite adults and sophisticated investors."
Haha! Go on, pull the other one!
And natives.
And the naive.
Indeed.
"Here's lookin' at you, kid."
Indian giver.
throwback
You pirates of destiny have not learned from history.
http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/ssb/history.html
Did somebody call for a pirate?
You will never win that game and your destiny is in the hands of greater beings.
Perhaps fonestar will start buying bitcoins to support the valuation.
fonestar is always BTFBTCD.
You obviously are young, dumb, and chinese. You are about to lose your ass and your overconfidence blinds you.
do you wear an eye patch
bifocals and Google glasses.
butt pirates
May the Lock Limit be with you.
May the people be with Locke.
...and also with you.
Hey CH1, like most things you post on, you've behaved like a gentleman on the whole BTC subject since long before I said I found the idea of it 'intriguing'... anyway, I just came back to this thread to ask how you've been doing on the whole speculation; you making out like a bandit, or has one been making off with your gear?
I'm just curious, and I know it's really none of my business, so answer (or don't) however you like. Best wishes though.
Gox is a mess, and everyone knew it, which is why they're at other exchanges. Baidu suspended using Bitcoin because of the pending Chinese regulation announcement, if they included price fluctuations, that's their business.
Of course, evey barking-seal troll is here to gleefully ride the coattails of Tyler's ad-revenue pump campaign.
Everyone I know was expecting price to swing lower, because this is how it has happened before. All according to the grand cycle of ups and downs, and we've been around the block on this one many times.
Totally expect to double or triple my position on the final lows. It will be a good day for me :)
Awesome reasoning.... But let me see if I have this correct-
If Bitcoin falls to $800, Baidu will give you ZERO.
If Bitcoin falls to $500, Baidu will tive you ZERO.
If Bitcoin falls to $100, Baidu will give you ZERO.
If Bitcoin falls to $1, Baidu will give you ZERO.
My calculations may be a tad off on the above, but hey- good luck in that averaging-down strategy.......
Can't the Fed help them "print" moar Bitcoins?
@jcaz
Who mentioned averaging down? Oh, that's right, YOU did. I guess you're used to trading like an idiot in the "standard" financial markets.
We don't do that here, because OUR markets actually go DOWN and UP, unlike your ancient rigged POMOed-to-death markets. No need to play it like a drunken E-Trade Baby.
But, do what you want, I know my plan, and its been working out just FINE.
They don't like Bitcoin because it deviates from their sense of "fair play" or in other parlance, losing.
We make our own rules.
Umm.... read the last sentence of your post.....
OR-
Maybe your "position" will "double or triple" magically, when you sprinkle your magic pixie fairy dust on it.....
Dude, you can't deny writing shit on here that everyone can page up and clearly see- geez, with that sort of delusion, people might not take you very seriously about your Bitcoins.....
Wait- lemme try it-
All the above? I didn't really write it.
Pay me one Bitcoin, please- I earned it!
What is the best exchange to use?
Cavirtex in Canada
your postion being that of bent over I presume
that should have been the sign to get the fuck outta dodge. oh well...
Bingo! If a buncha fucking scums like BofAML come out with news like that, you better cork your ass up.
Bitcoin continues its upwards crash towards infinity!
SELL NOW!!!
Hey Fuckstar.....I guess you have to keep a sense of humor. But I'd run out RIGHT now and find that one, lone coffee bar in town that accepts Shitcoin and buy as many double shot espresso lattes with organic goat's milk as you can.
And trade some Shitcoins for Magic the Gathering cards........and out of circulation Beanie Babies. Maybe hedge with a Cabbage Patch Doll or two. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!! ROTFLMFAO !!!!
Shitcoin?
Oh, you mean this:
http://dailybail.com/storage/chart-dollar-fed-destruction.jpg?__SQUARESP...
And your point?
You seriously expect me to be impressed with your reasoning skilss when you compare one completely, man made, fairytale, backed by nothing, fiat currency with another ?
Ok....Ein-fucking-stein......which is which ?
The one controlled by the Man.....or the one which the Man is letting you play with until He has had enough of your "Freedom Tech" <jeezus, fuckstar....your REALLY have to trademark that one....I mean "Feedom (chuckle.....hahaa.....snicker..... Tech.....LOL !!!! That's fucking priceless and SOOoooo Team America. >
Like Gary North, you're clueless:
http://www.economicsofbitcoin.com
Suggest you check out the background story and look at the idiots who are piling into BTC.*
http://pro.moneymappress.com/NVXBITCOIN49/MNVXPC05/?a=13&o=11399&s=11591...
* No, you don't need to buy what they're selling, but the seller's no idiot either:
http://moneymorning.com/author/michaelrobinson
Why trade my Bitcoin for magic cards when I can buy your mom and your sister too a year from now?
Really, I liked it better when logic and some research and inductive reasoning was on your side...
"Really, I liked it better when logic and some research and inductive reasoning was on your side..."
When the fuck was that???
The only things I've read from this jackwad (here and the other dozen sites he/she/it trolls/pumps on) is:
'Everyone who is against Btc is against cryptocurrency.' Fact not in evidence.
'Everyone who is against Btc is a goldbug.' Fact not in evidence.
'Everyone who is against Btc is grumpy, old, technophobic, illiterate, blah blah blah.' Facts never in evidence.
'Everyone who is against Btc is a fake Libertarian or fake libertarian'. Fact not in evidence.
'Btc is our savoir in the struggle against tyranny, and I'm here to lead the charge'. Then why spend so much of your time
pumping your bullshit to the investor blogs? The revolution starts on the streets.
'I don't care about Btc price (because I'm a revolutionary).' Then why tell us so often about how much you've made on it?
Wrapping up...you are either a worthless fucking liar, or, wait, nevermind, there is no B).
Look, I feel bad for you bro. I know a lot of people didn't get into some BTC like I did at $16. But there are other people going through this too and there are support groups available.
Locking that one in, for posterity.
Answer the fucking question Fuckstar.......how much in CONVERTED dollars have you made?
I'll tell you what it is. It's between JACK and SHIT !
Fucking worthless child lier.
"Look at me.....I'm a PRETTY revolutionary !!! WWWeeeee !!!! "
LOL !!!
Mom and sister...wow, you sound pretty desperate to keep the pumping alive. The big dump must be around the corner.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
You're not holding your breath after this big dump?
jk fone; anyway, it's plain you think your shit smells sweeter than everyone else's
I see Jumboturd graduated from the akak school of "adding conversational value".
What a pair you make.
BTC is too illiquid. BTC diehards will hate to hear that fact, but it's a fact nonetheless. Until it's liquid it's a lottery ticket.
That's the problem (and I'm cheering for alternative currencies that de-monopolize the system - honestly - but BTC is not of a form or credibility given its secrecy in terms of its "inherent value" - it has not even a military to enforce its use unlike many paper fiat currencies- , nor the secrecy/mystery of it founder(s) and his/her/their relations with other people or entities - that will be part of the process that will take the monopoly fiat system down) with BTC - you go in to buy a Tesla S, and the dealer says "oops, it looks like since you arrived, your BTC will only buy you a Vespa or maybe a diecast model or Hot Wheels '68 Mustang, bitchez."
Satoshi, Satoshi..come out, come out wherever you are...
I know. I know. Satoshi so brilliant, important & revolutionary, he/she/it can't be bothered to reveal himself/herself/itself.
Oh what secrecy? The media is trained in character assassination. If they couldn't find any dirt on Satoshi they would look at his kids or wife. If they couldn't find anything there they would create a media circus over a parking ticket his grandpa received in 1933. I'm sure being a brilliant cryptographer he doesn't exactly want to wind up a media spectacle or perhaps worse. AFYI, everything we deal with in computing and networking has links to .gov and intelligence agencies so just give it up.
I don't really care about the liquidity of Bitcoin right now because I have no intention of selling them if they go to $5, $50, $5,000 or $5,000,000. The lack of liquidity just shows how massively undervalued Bitcoin currently is.
and you have the gall to have used the phrase 'tin foil hats' as a pejorative?
S/he can't reveal himself else the boogey man will assassinate his character and then go after his wife and kids?
That was the lamest defense I've read from you to date.
If you wrote the prospectus for this 'speculative investment' there wouldn't be a single fucking person who ever heard of it.
"BTC is too illiquid."
Right, there's no buying and selling going on. Instead, everybody's stuck holding BTC like those who can't sell their houses.
Let me guess: You're bored to death in your parents basement and trying to play grownup.
Do you know what liquidity means?
Can you pay your property taxes, shop on Amazon, buy gasoline for your car, buy a car (except for a one-off Tesla by a Chinese Diplomat's wife), buy food at the grocery store, pay your utility bills or rent or mortgage, buy firearms or ammunition, book a vacation, etc with bitcoin?
Be honest about this.
I'm not an enemy of BTC. I don't slam it because I'm trolling. I don't slam it at all in fact.
I merely mention that it's not widely accepted currently as a means of exchange, precisely for the reason Baidu has rejected its use on their site.
When that significantly changes, I will then remark upon how things have objectively changed, and it's liquid (or at least, more liquid, to the point of being semi-liquid).
As it stands now, bitcoin faithful want to tar & feather every person who points out these inconvenient facts, as if they're the enemy. We're not (or at least most of us aren't). We're recognizing a reality a trying to refute much of the bullshit & hype that's being spread about the liquidity & very essence of BTC.
Its been around for FOUR years. What was the dollar doing in its infancy? It wasn't even paying taxes, because that particular scam didn't get written into law until much later.
I don't get your arguments, because you seem to be expecting a matured currency/commodity, and nowhere along the way has anyone claimed that Bitcoin is.
Give it some time, you'll see what it is capable of. Still doesn't excuse you trying to compare it against a system that's been around much longer.
But as I've noticed around here, most ZH posters are all about getting the LAUGHS, not really making POINTS.
TruthInSunshine:
"Can you pay your property taxes, shop on Amazon, buy gasoline for your car, buy a car (except for a one-off Tesla by a Chinese Diplomat's wife), buy food at the grocery store, pay your utility bills or rent or mortgage, buy firearms or ammunition, book a vacation, etc with bitcoin?
Be honest about this."
Honestly, you can already travel the world with it:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230378960457919617127...
dialing fonestar....you have reached fonestar...please do not leave a message at this time...he is hanging off the balcony and cannot come to the fone right now...dont leave a number, he will not be returning calls anytime soon...
Oh no!!! One company in China can't accept Bitcoin!!
PANIC AND SELL NOW!!!!
yeah. good thing it's just a little mom and pop operation like Baidu.
You're right, I am trying to place a sell order on all of my BTC right now but the virtual fire escape is filled with screaming Bitcoiners!
u do know its humor...right?
Here's a preview of the forthcoming Bitchcoin trading pit....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7TUI_IVLCI
+1000 London Callings
If fonestar is genuine in his desire to see BTC succeed long term for the right reasons, I want him to be correct & wealthy, since alternate, stable mediums of wealth, that are widely accepted as remittance for products & labor will hasten the demise of our sickly & morally corrupt Red Shield oligopoly (or maybe monopoly, given central bank collusion) paper fiat system.
I refuse to invest any trust or faith in BTC since its founder is a recluse, or maybe not even the person many claim he/she is, and who explains the value of BTC in mumbo jumbo that I don't understand (that doesn't mean the mumbo jumbo isn't factually correct; it's just that I don't invest in or get involved in that which doesn't make complete sense to me, since I'm a simple person with simple strategies, and not a supergeniusjetsettingcomputercodingdigitalwealthminingprospector).
otoh...:
http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1b1szk/how_do_i_know_bitcoin...
http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1r7iks/bitcoin_was_created_b...
The trick is simple: dress it as against the system, and rather than fight it, every libertard will blindly do all the work for you, all the while violently rejecting any hint of evidence they're anything but useful idiots.
A "correct" currency won't make someone rich for doing nothing. A "correct" currency would represent a stable store of value. Fonestar doesn't want a stable currency. He wants to get filthy rich by finding greater fools for his bitcoins.
Bitcoin may be a "voluntary" currency but they're sure going to taste good when I shove them down peoples throats.
The yearning to know "who" invented BTC belies an honest assessment ? Would it be OK only if they were someone famous or a Nobel prize holder ? It is completely open-source and should be judged on examination of itself.
No projected or inferred "trust" is required because it is not centralized and is completely transparent.
Would the timeless quotes by renowned philosophers be any less prescient or meaningful if they were written annonymously ? The value is in the meaning of the words not the social standing of the author ?
"Meh, Baidu big fuckin deal, it's not like it's Chinese Google or anything....."
~fonestar telling his dad not to worry about the money he lent him to buy a bitcoin
.......Aluminum.
There will be more to follow Bidau as volatility stays stupid huge.
folks lets be fair, pfonestar deserves his bitcoins. let hope he never sells them and rides the bitcoin ship into the great abyss I mean unknown.
Just look at that graph:
http://img42.com/NQJJ6+
Yeah, great trading instrument, if you are able to beat the exchange delay... Can you say 'pump & dump'?
How anyone is stupid enough to put his money in this is beyond me...
Certainly the opportunity is there for some of the larger longerholder of bitcoin to do just that. Sell them to twenty and thirty somethings in spain, china and cyprus - make a fortune, then get into guntcoins, goatsecoins, dwaynecoins etc. Brilliant move if you can do it. The only amusing thing is you actually may be able to sucker in a few bankster types to get their faces melted off.
I'll buy some from the bitcoiners here when it gets back down to $25.
I can use some new tulip bulbs. The ones I have now seemed to have turned black, and shriveled up and died.
The ones I have now seemed to have turned black, and shriveled up and died.
Bought at the top I am guessing,
You know what, I'll buy 100 BTC when it's at 1$ and ride it back up to 5$
I bought a $100Trillion Zimbabwe note for $US5, and I've lost money on it so far. Damn!
I got one too, but since they're now out of stock at Provident, you might get your money back... http://www.providentmetals.com/coins/currency/inflationary-currency.html
Lamborghini Dealer commits suicide over BitCoin addiction.
Bill Gross covers Bitcoin short to Lambo dealer at huge profit!
Fook Me!!! a little teary for nostalgia.
RIPS
Someone needs to inform http://lamborghininewportbeach.blogspot.com/ to update their graph.
The pot is calling the kettle black!
Oh come on now....
It's OK.
The government likes it!
bye bye.
It's going to take the loss of two year's gains for "bye bye." This is barely more than a week's -- a minor pullback for something that's severely overbought.
I was not referring to the price so much as whether retailers were going to jump on board or jump ship. I don't see how bitcoin can ever really become somthing truly special until you can freely exhange ot for goods. In the meantime it sure beats the fees a bank would hit you with to move money.
The retailers can price in risk on the exchange rates. I see the deployment as being gradual rather than instantaneous -- as more exchange history develops more users will become comfortable with it, and/or someone sees a business model in managing the volatility and steps in as a intermediary with the stores.
Do you think Baidu got pressured from the Chinese governement into making this decision? That's what it seems like to me anyway.
Ya think?
I don't think there such thing as "indepedant policy decisions" in China (kinda like the US).
I think that's a pretty good assumption. These people who are pumping bitcoin kill me. I've seen this behavior a million and one times when a person falls in live with a stock. They don't think it will ever go down, and when it finally does they piss away their gains waiting for it to come back as they praise it all the way to zero.
Bitcoin is, for all practical purposes, a highly illiquid asset.
Until that changes, and I doubt it will (it will probably grow more illiquid given what's likely to be increasing volatility), it is firmly on the path towards extinction.
A person or a business can't plan when they lose $500 worth of purchasing power in one day.
Unless their margins are so razor thin they can't lose a penny ,I don't understand why they can't just price their goods in their own currency and get the value of the current transaction in their currency transfered directly to their account.
It's possible. The timing with the banking ban is very suspicious, at the very least. At the same time this looks to be a relatively minor event; the key will be if they resume bitcoin payments or not. If they don't resume within a week or two I'd assume it was external pressure and it's a "hard" ban.
Retailers can price in the volatility? Not with the volatility that we've seen. If 1Btc is exchanging for $900 USD now are you trying to convince us that Joe retailer who accepts Btc can charge 1.25 Btc for the same item that John the retailer sells for $900 USD?
In what world would even the most deluded consumer make that deal?
If you expect volatility to decrease simply because your model requires it to, then I'd like to interest you in a few timeshares in my Nevada coastland retirement village model.
Networking and confidence of the sort you're talking about takes a lot of time except for speculators. Sounds like you expect the retailers and the consumers to jump in as de facto speculators and hedgers and arbitrageurs. Not gonna happen - at least not like that.
"If someone enters to manage the risk..."
Who? How? Wish in one hand, and .....
Actually from a company as large as Baidu, this is surprising. Especially one that is in web services! Managing forex transactions in real time seems like a technical problem that got solved years ago.
Volatility is a much bigger problem for small retailers than big, tech-savvy ones like Baidu. The fingerprints of Chinese politicians are all over this case.
FX is manageable due to its great liquidity and availability of hedging. BTC is on the other hand notoriously illiquid, cumbersome to hedge, and by the way the trading platforms suck. It simply isn't manageable in a real sense.
I'm sorry if this comes off as rude, but I really can't think of a better analogy.
You two guys sound like pink sheet stock traders trying to convince yourselves and everyone else that your non reporting pink sheet stock being placed on the DTC Chill list is not necessarily a bad thing.
Sorry guys. It is a bad thing. If a currency is not accepted to purchase goods and services...then what good is it as a currency?
...patience...
In the meantime it sure beats the fees a bank would hit you with to move money.
I guess that depends on how fast and when you can convert the bloody things. you could have bought today at $900 and reconverted into currency at $600. Thats a pretty hefty transaction fee.
and they are still celebrating the tesla sale from the other day - returns?
ADVERTISING EXPENSE.
Only God can make Money, everything else is a ponzie
This I gotta hear.
Why, for one, would he need it.
And why, secondly, would he create beings who did.
Didn't see that one coming.....Lol. It seems like just yesterday a person could have bought a shiny eagle for a bitcoin. Oh well.
hey doc, you wanna bet that ben will taper the mortgage purchases?
Lol..... I'm tempted Kito. I'll have to think on that one. Being 4 and 0 I'd hate to mess up my record.
ah hah!!! you are having doubts!!!!
face it doc, ben HAS to taper in some form. if only for symbolic purposes. guaranteed. doubts are starting to emerge from the shadows. he has to do SOMETHING. its a must or he exposes the system for what it is.
lets go doc, put your the sandwich where the mouth is :) you have been saying taper will never happen.
The Fed will NEVER taper, at least not until the US dollar finally goes up in flames. What they WILL do, though, is declare that they are tapering, or that QE is over, even as it continues --- much like the ongoing and indefinite US occupation of Iraq.
they will cut somewhere, only to double down somewhere else. but there will have to be a symbolic cut.
Oh, you're probably right Kito --- they will cut QE by, say, $10 billion a month, just AFTER raising it by $50 billion a month. "But see, we did taper!". Kind of like the dishonest retailer who offers a "sale" of 30% off after raising his prices by 50%.
I think we are about to see just how liquid this Bitcoin market really is. Unlike a real market, there are no short sellers to provide any buying on the way down. It can go no bid and really free fall.
This isn't the first time it has taken a hit. It won't be the last.
What are you talking about? There aren't any short sellers in the stawk market for an underlying bid. That's why this bitch will vaporize if the fed ever pulls the plug.
True, but the 'plunge protection team', brokers, banks, drug proceeds, and endless Fed pumping keep the stawk market from tanking. They're not flooding into BTC, so there is no (false) floor.
Mt. Gox has "temporarily" suspended USD redemptions. That kind of shit would worry me.
Mt. Gox does that all the freaking time since the banks dropped their wire transfer limit. Look at the other exchanges, Gox is pretty much a racket now.
care to share with the class as to which exchanges are better
Bitstamp and btce are approximately the same size mtgox at the moment and don't have liquidity halts. Unfortunately until mtgox can get more wire tranfer authority it's not very good for smaller users.
Canadian virtual Exchange are excellent
The liquidity clearly can be challenged. I'm looking at the charts trying to backtrack, and it looks to me like someone dropped a $20M (20K BTC) sell order "at market." You can see it triggering additional stops as the price blows downward through the stack.
This is starting to look awfully suspicious (single order, market sell, guaranteed to result in less profits than a staged order) and a lot like the April gold move. Someone was willing to lose $2-5M to handle this order this particular way. The timing is also suspicious since it precludes buyers from transferring funds into the exchanges over the weekend.
Update - here's the order in question: http://blockchain.info/address/12WFth5HabiVrcj5waHtDP1b7gXSQPuDPz
Probably the same "profit oriented" individual that does that to Monkey hammmer the Gold market.
Who would that be?
BTC: the gold you can't hold
...I'm coining that bit
Fluctuations? Fluck you white people too!
Hope all you dumped before the Federal Reserve attacked this. Greenspan is usually the last to open his trap and make others aware of this.
Bitcoin dead cat bounces to the moon!
How many exchanges are there? How many different crypto-currencies are there? How many arbitrage opportunities are there and how much of that is moving the volume concerning trades? How profitible is it to mine lesser coins then convert them over the bitcoin which moves volume? It is amazing just how little the commentors here understand about the market exchanges themselves. BTW you can also do direct currency swaps like USD/EUR trading on these same exchanges. All those other crypto-currencies you can't swap against each other only against USD or BTC. Where do you think the excess volume is going and why BTC is partially rising as miners mine the lesser coins. Can you say reserve digital currency for BTC right now the way the exchanges are setup if you want to stay in crypto-currency and not cash out. I don't claim to be an expert but for a beginner I've already recouped my initial investment+more in 2 miner rigs about $2300 I.V. after 1 month doing this dance including making a profit mining after electricity costs. That is only the trading end of it.
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/v2/coins/info
You guys here act like a bunch one trick ponies and the Tyler(s) seem to be so also, either that or they enjoy rattling chains.
Your concerns make me wonder how likely it is for these exchanges to ever "settle-down."
This is a far from a mature market so volatility is part of the growing pains. Also slight correction on my original post on the exchanges you can only swap lesser crypto-currency against country based currencies not just USD but also EUR. It is not just limited strictly to USD.
Here are some other interest contenders based on market cap and proof of concept.
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/beyond-bitcoin-a-guide-to-the-most-prom...
My personal favorite is Ripple.
From the article.
Ripple is perhaps the most intriguing contender among the most popular altcoins, if only because it’s the only one that doesn’t resemble Bitcoin, and one that’s already attracted millions in venture capital from prominent firms like Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture, The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. It’s uniqueness, of course, poses its own problems, in that most people aren’t sure what it exactly is. Rather than competing with Bitcoin directly, Ripple is meant to complement other currencies, both virtual and fiat, by acting as a decentralized payment system and exchange.
Ripple is technically an internet protocol, like HTTP and TCP/IP, which are used to relay websites and data, respectively, in a standardized fashion. Ripple is designed to send and receive payments. A good way to wrap your head around it is to think of email. Using your Gmail account, you can send email to your mom’s Yahoo account or even to that dude still using AOL. Ripple functions in a similar manner. No matter what provider or financial institution you use, you’ll be able to send money using the Ripple protocol.
Here’s where things can get a little confusing. Ripple isn’t just a currency or a payment process. It’s actually a whole slew of things. Ripple is composed of three main parts: a payment network, a distributed exchange, and its own Bitcoin-like currency. The payment network is basically a Facebook for finance, a web of approved friends you can transact with. The distributed exchange is an automated system for currency trades, giving Ripple cross-currency compatibility. That means you can send or receive money using any currency you choose, whether its dollars or bitcoins. Finally, the currency, known as ripples, plays a key role in the system's overall functionality and security.
So how does it work? At its core, Ripple is built around a distributed public ledger, similar to Bitcoin’s block chain, that records transactions and account balances, but also offers to buy or sell currencies or assets, thus creating the first distributed financial exchange. To achieve this, participants in the network agree to changes in the ledger via a consensus algorithm rather than proof-of-work. (It’s a bit technical, but there’s a video explaining the process.) Consensus is achieved every two to five seconds, eliminating the need for a centralized clearing house. The Ripple currency is then used as a means of preventing network spam and also serves as a bridge currency. Each transaction requires a small fee paid in ripples, which are destroyed once the transaction is made.
Still with me? Because it’s about to get a bit wonkier. Just like the financial system at large, Ripple is built on a system of trust. For instance, if you have $500 in your Chase account, you trust that the bank will have that money available for you when you withdraw it. This is the fundamental concept of the Ripple system and also where the social network comes into play. Except with Ripple, everyone is their own bank and you get to decide which friends to trust and how much money they’re good for. In other words, the ledger is a record of everyone’s debts rather than a balance of money they actually have in the system, just as your bank account balance is actually a record of the amount the bank is indebted to you. So with Ripple, you’re exchanging IOUs instead of cold hard cash, a revolving line of credit between you, your friends, and your friends of friends. Debts are then cleared outside the system. Here’s how it works:
It starts with a social network, in which the relationships between people are defined by lines of credit. For example, I know Stefan and Andreas. I am willing to let them get up to $1000 and $2000 in debt to me, respectively. In turn, they both know Elli. Stefan only recently met her and is only willing to give her $300 of credit. Andreas knows her better, knows she has a stable job etc - he is willing to give her $500 of credit. I have Bitcoins to sell.
Elli would like to purchase some Bitcoins for dollars. She does not know me, but that doesn't matter. She can instruct her exchange software to purchase coins and receive them from me immediately. By doing so, she becomes in debt to Stefan and Andreas by whatever amounts were necessary to make her desired purchase, and they both become transitively in debt to me. The fact that this debt exists may be a matter of public record for some implementations. For others, only the two actors in each line of credit know the balances. At some later date I will settle up with Stefan and Andreas. We can settle with cash, PayPal, wire transfers, whatever makes the most sense. We can use even quite reversible forms of payment like PayPal because of the pre-existing trust relationships. And of course, Elli will pay both Stefan and Andreas in the same manner.
Hence the name: debt “ripples” through your social graph.
Such a system obviously presents a host of potential problems. For one, every participant is exposed to a certain degree of counterparty risk, and measuring that risk isn’t something most people are good at or have practice doing, which is why they generally leave the practice of lending money to professional bankers. It’s impossible to be sure if or when someone will pay you back, even if they’re a close friend. It should be noted that the Ripple currency itself is not subject to counterparty risk.
Moreover, because transactions ripple through the system, your balances can be affected even if you haven’t personally made a transaction. In other words, you could wake up one day to suddenly find that you owe a friend (or a few friends) a bunch of money. In that sense, everyone is a passive liquidity provider, which inherently puts you at risk even when you have nothing to gain.
The currency itself has also been the target of criticism. Without a self-regulating system of mining, the creators of Ripple conjured up an arbitrary amount to start, exactly 100 billion ripples. They then proceeded to “gift” 80 billion of them to Ripple Labs, a for profit company, which intends to give away 55 billion of them to users of the system. Thus far, only a small fraction of those ripples have been distributed and there’s little transparency or standardization on how that process might work. In early November, the New York Times reported that 7.5 billion ripples had been released into the wild. As a protocol, Ripple itself is owned by no one.
The process of consensus also poses its issues, since the process of validation is distributed but not decentralized. In theory, users can pick and choose their own network of validators to ensure transaction integrity. But Ripple readily admits that “in practice, most people will use the default UNL supplied by their client.” Similar to the state of Ripple currency, this list of validators will be maintained by Ripple Labs, which promises to maintain a diverse selection of validators they can "trust to not collude to defraud us." Of course, poor management of the validator pool will undermine the entire system, prompting users to flee, but again, it ultimately amounts to a centralized system and power in the hands of a few.
Not only must users trust their selected network of peers, they also have to trust Ripple Labs. Predictably, these revelations have drawn the ire of Bitcoin supporters, who believe the company is trying to “cash in on Bitcoin’s popularity.” As such, the top Google result for a search of “Ripple currency” is the site RippleScam.org. Likewise, Ripple’s centralization and profit potential has made it particularly attractive to Silicon Valley investors.
Still, Ripple’s unique concept as a system of p2p credit is intriguing in and of itself and also has clear benefits. Transaction fees are lower or non-existent, similar to Bitcoin. But transactions are faster, confirmed in seconds rather than a minimum of minutes. It’s also more accessible in that users can use whatever currency they choose. It’s for this reason that Ripple’s creators claim it to be a complement rather than competition.
Indeed, as a decentralized exchange, Ripple might end up being the easiest way to purchase bitcoins or any altcoin for that matter, a process that remains daunting for cryptocurrency newbies. It also provides a practical way to spend your stash of coins, no matter what currency the merchant receives. Consequently, if Ripple ever gains traction, it will be a huge boon for digital currency innovation since new market entrants can join an existing platform. Ripple makes all currencies easy to use.
Which is perhaps what makes Ripple the smartest long term bet, beyond being not-just-another-Bitcoin. Even if the Great Crash happens, as many predict, and Bitcoin goes the way of MySpace, it’s only a matter of time before Facebook eventually arrives. In that sense, it’s protected against a potentially fickle public. It’s not just a bet on Bitcoin or any particular clone, it’s a bet on virtual currencies as a whole. Because if Bitcoin is Facebook, then Ripple is the iPhone. Who’s going to bet against that?
This looks to be the first iterationof things I've been screaming about for awhile now about crypto-currency moving towards becoming it's own network protocol and integrating banking and decentralized trading platforms and exchanges into the whole mess.
I tried to get involved in Ripple. First I set up the wallet according to instructions. Then they told me I would be getting 100 free Ripples, so I followed the procedure, and the website crashed, no explanation, and the procedurre could not be recovered or restarted. It was definitely a software crash, most likely due to software problems or system overload.
Then I read a lot of comments from other users with the same problem, and a few "feel-good" comments from the staff about how they were going to fix the problems. Then a few weeks later I got an email telling me how I could buy some Ripples for I don't remember how much.
I did not get a warm and fuzzy feeling about the whole enterprise. Their system could not handle basic requests from a very limited pool of users executing a pre-defined procedure. Do I want to invest real money in something like this?