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Bitcoin - P2P currency
Jonatan Hedborg
Member #4,886
July 2004
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Quote:

You could have hundreds or thousands of dollars in your account by the time we launch, without ever making a deposit!

You should never question free money. ::):-X

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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Gold currently has a similar problem. Its value is artificially inflated, and they don't actually have the amount of gold they've "sold" to people. Good luck collecting. If you have gold certificates, you're going to want to make sure you get them to give you the actual gold at some point, or your certificates will become more worthless than the currency you used to buy it.

That's a good point. I never thought of it that way. I wonder if Texas University actually has the $1billion in gold they purchased?

I also thought that in a worldwide economic crash, how much would gold be worth if nobody can afford to buy it? But it's all that people have to protect their investments, I think many will find when a crash occurs that they will be just as broke with their "gold" as with actual cash.

if you believe in bible prophecy, it states that people will throw their gold into the streets, indicating that it will be just as worthless. Time will tell.

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Arthur Kalliokoski
Second in Command
February 2005
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Neil Roy said:

I think many will find when a crash occurs that they will be just as broke with their "gold" as with actual cash.

They can trade it with goods and services, as always, because the people who get it will expect to be able to trade it etc. I sure would.

They all watch too much MSNBC... they get ideas.

Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003

I bought an AMD 5850 video card for $150USD shipped. With 24/7 mining, my calculations show that it will be paid off by the end of next month, including paying for electricity. This will be an interesting experiment ...

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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You should never question free money. ::):-X

Unless of course, it isn't real money. And this isn't real money, it's no different than a score on a video game, you get a higher score for getting more people to join the service, you get points on a daily basis that varies. No actual real world currency is changing hands, I can't turn in these virtual points (they call $ but...) for real world money or goods, only digital goods so, it doesn't look like a good idea to me. BUT, I signed up anyhow... just in case. :P

Edit:

After reading all the terms of agreement on that VirtaPay site, two items bothered me:

1. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

8. You must not post obscene material. Doing so is grounds for immediate account termination.

So you built up a lot of VirtaPay cash and suddenly, just for fun, your service gets terminated and you lose it all... you can't do anything about it. Also, I am curious what they define as "obscene", different cultures have different ideas on what is obscene and what is art... what if you posted something you thought was decent, they decide it is obscene and poof, your account is closed, all cash is lost, no legal remedy.

I think I changed my mind, I'll close my account there.

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Neil Roy said:

, I can't turn in these virtual points (they call $ but...) for real world money or goods

Last I checked you can. There are exchanges that will turn BtCs into cash.

--
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"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
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Vanneto
Member #8,643
May 2007

Neil: I do hope you know Jonatan was being sarcastic. :P I'm even more amazed you opened an account there. Don't feel bad tho, a lot of people (including me) would stop having money if people would stop being naive. ;D

But reading the ToS, smart move. If only more people did that then there'd be a lot less scams in this world.

In capitalist America bank robs you.

Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003

Last I checked you can. There are exchanges that will turn BtCs into cash.

He was talking about VistaPay, not Bitcoins.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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With regard to VirtaPay, I wasn't naive, just curious about what it was they were offering. Signing up didn't cost me anything so I signed up just to see what they had. Their terms of service agreement is a total scam, and one would be a fool to use that as a service without any legal remedies or methods to convert their "cash" into real money. It's basically just a sophisticated video game in my opinion. If you wish to buy something online, stick to credit cards, at least if you have a dispute over a charge, you can call the credit card company and have it removed. These online currencies are a total scam and far too risky in my opinion, there really isn't ANY reason that I have seen to use them, other than for the sheer novelty of it all.

Something like PayPal is good for this (although I don't like some of how they operate, like their minimum withdraw amount, I got some money donated to me for one of my games and I can't withdraw it because that's all I have in the paypal account and it's below their withdraw limit, so someone basically just got done donating to PayPal for my game, not me. I definitely have to find a better service for this type of thing.

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

weapon_S
Member #7,859
October 2006
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Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
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Nah, I'll just use a credit card for such things if needed. I just made certain I have a card with a low limit and I keep the card's balance paid off so I pay no interest. With a credit card I can better protect myself from fraud as well and my account won't suddenly just vanish one day with all my "money" I had in it.

I am even considering getting rid of my credit card entirely and not bothering at all with online purchases. But that probably won't happen. ;D

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

gnolam
Member #2,030
March 2002
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--
Move to the Democratic People's Republic of Vivendi Universal (formerly known as Sweden) - officially democracy- and privacy-free since 2008-06-18!

Jakub Wasilewski
Member #3,653
June 2003
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I find the whole forum conversation over at bitcoin.org hilarious.

Long story short: Paypal cut its support for a guy exchanging BitCoins to USD and back. The reason? Basically, Paypal has policies against people doing e-currency with their service, which is pretty undestandable considering the line of business they are in.

Whether you agree with their rationale or not (and PayPal really is evil, I know), those responses are insane:

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Mndrix, in the end of the day the bastards shut you down for POLITICAL reasons.

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They are scared. It means we are winning.
I hope it goes well for you mndrix.

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"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Ghandi
Eventually PayPal will support BTC as a currency, just like they support USD or EUR. Then we win.

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So it begins, the first shot is fired in the bitcoin wars.

Delusions of grandeur, anyone? It sounds as if some people there consider themselves martyrs already. (There were some sane voices too, I just picked the silliest posts).

I wonder how this debacle will influence the value of a BTC. Reason dictates that the value should fall severely as trust into it being easily exchangeable to USD disappears. Edit: or not. It seems there are some other ways of exchanging the currency. Still, there should be a discernible fall, I think.

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Vanneto
Member #8,643
May 2007

@BillyBob: you are surely joining a mining pool, right?

In capitalist America bank robs you.

ImLeftFooted
Member #3,935
October 2003
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???

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
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And now Dustin's last $20 is tied up in a system that has been destroyed. :'(

weapon_S
Member #7,859
October 2006
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After reading the freebie motherboard thread, I just realized that Bitcoin-mining in theory might give incentive to build quantum computers/not take in account the advent of quantum computers. I personally don't believe I will ever see a quantum computer in my life-time, but wouldn't it be funny, if I were wrong?

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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Karadoc ~~
Member #2,749
September 2002
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What's going on? Should I sell or wait?
So far I've turned my $40 into $170.

I'm quite surprised that they've gone up at all. I expected that the price would be flat, or in slow decline as people mine bitcoins to sell them for conventional currency. So base on that I'd say sell and be happy – but what would I know? Not much, apparently.

Again, I find that increase astounding. Not only has the value gone up, it's gone up heaps, and I don't really understand why.

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weapon_S
Member #7,859
October 2006
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What's going on? Should I sell or wait?

Sell half of the Bitcoins; still make absolute profit :o Nice going Dustin :)
The mining is (apparently) ridiculously restricted compared to the demand of an emerging currency. I think this shows that it might not have been the best to make it is impossible to "print more" when necessary.

Michael Jensen
Member #2,870
October 2002
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Alright, figured I had to stop in and see what was going on in this thread finally.

First off: pages 1-2 all about "You can't make money mining Bitcoins, or can you?" -- that's not the point of Bitcoin, that's just how the inflation process works; inflation makes you POORER over time not richer. That's to handle increased usage over time, and more people having Bitcoin wallets... Also, eventually when the system hits max inflation (and there is a defined max) Bitcoins can be subdivided into decimal quantities.

In the end you make money on Bitcoin the same way you would any other currency, you trade for it, you work for it, or you cheat for it.

Second off: For anyone citing technical issues -- the people who designed and built Bitcoin had everything mentioned in this thread (just about) figured out before they wrote a single line of code, they understand cryptography and scalability better than you, these problems have already been solved, so deal with it.

Third off: for people citing that it isn't real money: There is no such thing as real money. It's all a number in a computer somewhere, and is only EVER worth what people are willing to give you in exchange for it. The same thing my nintendo or computer is worth. Just because I can trade my nintendo for more cows now than I could before doesn't mean the value of my nintendo went up, maybe it means the value of cows went down, or even that the value of my nintendo went down but the values of cows went so far down that it offset that... or any other feasible combination of the two.

US dollars are not the only monetary system used in the US. Several cities have localized currencies. Usually when the currency gets too strong the fed steps in and breaks it up. Bit coin does not suffer this issue as it is decentralized.

Bit coin DOES, however, have a stability issue which is caused by it not being widely accepted, and not being backed by another currency with an established value (such as gold or silver), however as more people begin to adopt it and use it it may begin to stabilize more. At any rate, even if the value just stays the same, the relative value (in US dollars) will go up as the US dollar plummets.

This is no different from investing your money in another stable currency on the Forex exchange (In idiot's terms Forex is like a stock market for trading money. Someone else may be able to explain it better, but a lot of the confusion in this thread would disappear if people just understood the above.)

Trezker said:

Can't they pay out bitcoins for scientific work units? That'd be a great motivator for people to contribute to distributed computing as you'd get something for it.

The EFF takes Bitcoins as payment, so you can help them out if you like.

I'd much rather trust the reserve bank.

+1 vote for stupidest statement ever.

Neil Roy said:

I see no use for this what so ever.

You just said you hate the con-game the banks play on us, yet switching to a currency they don't control is unappealing to you?

The thing about this bitcoin system is that instead of trusting people, I would have to trust the system.

Exactly.

Could you then explain why things cost nearly 10 times what they did when I was a kid?

It's called inflation. Like in monopoly when you pass go. More money enters into the system for some arbitrary reason that benefits no one except for those who made up the arbitrary conditions. What Bitcoin has is much more fair.

In monopoly, if we always had the same money as we did at the start it would be hard to bankrupt anybody and take all their stuff while they rot in debtors prison; also the system would be way too fair.

This is the problem people have solved with inflation, because people don't like fair. People like unfair advantages (blame evolution, for people's desire to get ahead unfairly.) So they fuck with the system and gain a deep understanding of how it works, and exploit it, and their fuckings with it, to become very rich. They're called bankers and brokers and financial tycoons, and criminals in suits.

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The politicians ultimately use this funny money to buy votes.

The corporations that buy politicians you mean.

I bought $20 worth of bitcoins. Do you think they're going to deflate?

Bitcoin currency is constantly inflating; but that doesn't mean you can't trade it for more than you paid for... But why Bitcoin and not Forex or some money market -- that is, if you just wanted to trade? [edit: after reading the whole thread, wow, good job Dustin!]

Right, but somebody had to give bitcoins actual value by backing them up with money or goods, and everyone who did that essentially gave away their money.

Which was worthless money anyway. Money is just an idea, a number in a computer somewhere anyway. It's not really "backed" with anything. It never was. Just what people were willing to back it with.

In the US they say it's backed with gold, but when the world called in their debts, Nixon gave half our gold away, then gave them all the finger, and shut the doors on that real quick.

Let me say it again: Your money is not really worth anything. It has no REAL value. ALL MONEY regardless of the currency type, etc, is worth EXACTLY what people decide it's worth. I give away 40 hours a week of my work (sometimes more) for currency that is constantly losing value that barely pays my rent and feeds me. My work that I trade is a type of currency too! -- Would it matter if they paid me in star trek action figures? Not if sellers were willing to take them as payment -- at that point in the example star trek action figures become legitimate money.

If you own a bitcoin, you only own what people are willing to give you for it.

You mean like stocks on Forex? Again, not all stocks are in companies...

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Of course with a stock you can only get what people are willing to pay you for it as well, but at least you own something tangible instead of something that is made up.

Um, it sounds like you have no idea how the stock market works. NOTHING on the stock market is tangible. Not in futures/commodities/securities (unless you're doing it wrong), not in Forex, not in bonds, and certainly not in any of the traditional exchanges that you're talking about like NYSE or NASDAQ, etc...

Neil Roy said:

you own a percantage of that company, something tangible.

How is a made up entity worth something OTHER than what people decided it was worth? Again, it's ALL made up. It's not real.

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A bitcoin is only worth anything as currency if people are willing to trade goods in exchange for these.

So, exactly like regular currency then...

If you have gold certificates, you're going to want to make sure you get them to give you the actual gold at some point, or your certificates will become more worthless than the currency you used to buy it.

Thomas, is that true for all gold trading systems? What about pecunix, for example? -- I'm not really interested in buying gold, but thinking about silver, it's cheaper and seems to be growing faster in value (anyway, the service I found doesn't sell you paper, they actually ship you the metal you buy... but even then I'm not convinced it would be worth anything when I needed it.)

Neil Roy said:

I think many will find when a crash occurs that they will be just as broke with their "gold" as with actual cash.

Right? Who wants to buy gold when they can buy FOOD or AMMUNITION or OIL... especially a piece of paper that represents gold on a market that may not even exist at that point...?

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if you believe in bible prophecy, it states that people will throw their gold into the streets, indicating that it will be just as worthless. Time will tell.

That happens all the time in history. It's called famine. Money isn't real. You can't eat it, it's just an idea. It's only worth what people are willing to give for it. Bitcoins are no different.

Again, I find that increase astounding. Not only has the value gone up, it's gone up heaps, and I don't really understand why.

Because the perceived value has changed, usually this is a result of supply & demand. Perhaps in the last few days someone has tried to buy a lot of Bitcoin? Or perhaps in the last few days our currency inflated dramatically...

Neil Roy said:

Unless of course, it isn't real money.

It never is. Work is all you have. What you're willing to trade for yours is up to you and whom you're trading with. ;D

Karadoc ~~
Member #2,749
September 2002
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Second off: For anyone citing technical issues -- the people who designed and built bitcoin had everything mentioned in this thread (just about) figured out before they wrote a single line of code, they understand cryptography and scalability better than you, these problems have already been solved, so deal with it.

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I'd much rather trust the reserve bank.

+1 vote for stupidest statement ever.

My point was that for a currency like this to gain traction, it isn't enough to just say it works. The general public needs to be convinced that it works, and is safe, and stable, and reliable. I think the system sounds pretty good, and I'd be surprised of the inventors hasn't thought of all the technical problems that we've mentioned here. But saying "they've thought of it, and they know more than you" is just not enough of a guarantee for me to start trusting this system with the bulk of my money. I'm not even vaguely close to considering moving all of my savings into bitcoins — because I have far more trust in the currency that I'm already using (AUD). Do you really think I'm stupid for saying this?

Because the perceived value has changed, usually this is a result of supply & demand. Perhaps in the last few days someone has tried to buy a lot of bitcoin? Or perhaps in the last few days our currency inflated dramatically...

I see. So the value went up because the value changed. Thanks. Stupid people like me need that kind of explanation.

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Michael Jensen
Member #2,870
October 2002
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But saying "they've thought of it, and they know more than you" is just not enough of a guarantee for me to start trusting this system with the bulk of my money.

Because of security? That seems dumb. It's about as secure as it's going to get; and when they find bugs, because it's open source, they'll get fixed. If you're going to put something that could become compromised like this, open source wins out for security. Just look at the compromised voting system -- I trust open source waaaay more than closed source for something like this!

video

However, stability is another issue. I speculate that NOBODY is putting "the bulk of their money" into this system, and that's mostly because of stability issues (the value of the money in this system is not as "guaranteed" or in "wide spread" usage.

I wouldn't put any bulk of money in this system -- but it may be fun to set up an account anyway and play with it until it gains traction -- it won't go from 0%-100% over night, but maybe over the next 10 years it will become stable) -- there may be a tiny segment of people who don't understand how it works and thinks it's insecure, but those are the same people who think the economy and banks are black magic.

Anyway, if there is a security hole found, fix it, it's open source. Someone might exploit it for a bit (as a link was shown above -- but that exploit was never discussed here as an original idea or brought up before the link was posted -- and the system recovered well because the open source community found the issue and fixed it.)

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I'm not even vaguely close to considering moving all of my savings into bitcoins

Again, I wouldn't either. But the second reason you quote is a different reason: "because I have far more trust in the currency that I'm already using (AUD)." -- it sounds like stability is your real concern too, and not security.

As I mentioned earlier, Bitcoin lacks stability. -- I suppose in the context of Bitcoin (or any infant currency without any backing) versus an existing and established reserve bank, the reserve bank will win (sadly), but I still do not trust OUR reserve bank at all. AUD maaaaaaay be different from the US, but it's pretty bad in the US.

The Federal Reserve (our central bank) isn't even a government institution [despite the name -- and unless you count that they aren't taxed... -- at least according to the supreme court in a decision made literally one year before I was born, to the day. Holy shit. Clearly I was sent here on a mission... 8-)::);)]

That statement remind me of this video -- Worth Watching: haha ;)

video

I think it's probably tea-party propaganda, but if you can get past that, there is some humor and educational value in it. ;)

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I see. So the value went up because the value changed. Thanks. Stupid people like me need that kind of explanation.

Well, yeah, that's how all prices in all currency exchanges change. Traders live and breathe this stuff, and most of the time they don't even care why, just that it happened -- sometimes nothing but trader speculation is what drives a price up (like with oil...) -- Anyway, I was thinking about putting some money into this back in January, not for trading, but just... yeah... fuck. Wish I'd done that! ;)

Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003

they understand cryptography and scalability better than you, these problems have already been solved, so deal with it.

Thank you for bringing this topic up, because although your specific statement is false (probably through no fault of your own), it's a great opportunity to discuss something very important.

No system is ever so well designed as to be irreproachable.

We all possess the intellectual capacity to both understand the Bitcoin system and improve upon it.

The spirit of Bitcoin is one of openness and community. Everyone, from every walk of life, is free to dissect it, discuss it, and change it.

Oscar Giner
Member #2,207
April 2002
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It has sky rocketing today :o

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So today it went from 3.8$ each BCoin to 4.7$ each BCoin, and the day hasn't ended yet :o:o.



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