UPDATE 1-Bitcoin passes $1,000 for first time as enthusiasm grows

[mick silver]

UPDATE 1-Bitcoin passes $1,000 for first time as enthusiasm grows Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:12pm EST

0 Comments (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/bitcoin-trade-idUSL2N0JC19320131127#comments)




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Nov 27 (Reuters) - The price of the digital currency bitcoin soared above $1,000 for the first time on Wednesday, extending a surge this month after a U.S. Senate hearing on virtual currencies (http://www.reuters.com/finance/currency).
Bitcoin hit a high of $1,073 on Tokyo-based exchange Mt.Gox, the best-known operator of a bitcoin digital marketplace,compared with just below $900 the previous day.
At the beginning of the month, bitcoin, a prominent digitalcurrency that is not backed by a government or central bank,traded at around $215.
Bitcoin advocates say last week's Senate hearing gave morelegitimacy to the currency, which has been gaining acceptance bythe general public and investment community but has yet tobecome an accepted form of payment on the websites of majorretailers such as Amazon.com (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN&lc=int_mb_1001).
"It isn't just the bitcoin community saying that bitcoin isused for good things and there's a lot of great potential, wehave members of Congress and government agencies who all agree,"said Jinyoung Lee Englund, spokeswoman for the BitcoinFoundation in Washington.
Bitcoin is valued by many users for its anonymity. Butgovernment officials expressed concerns that many virtualcurrency services do not have the proper controls in place toprevent illegal activities such as money laundering.
In October, federal authorities shut down an onlinemarketplace called Silk Road that was used for purchasing drugsand hiring hit men. Authorities seized $3.6 million worth ofbitcoin, which was used instead of cash or credit cards tocomplete transactions on Silk Road.
Others pointed to the volatility in bitcoin prices.
"A narrow asset class and lots of liquidity is the perfectenvironment for a rapid burst up in value and then corrections,"said Sebastien Galy, a currency strategist at Societe Generalein New York.
Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day, every day. The supply of thecurrency, which is "mined" by solving math problems, is limited.
More than 200 bitcoin businesses and other merchants areparticipating in a bitcoin Black Friday shopping event, whereusers can buy everything from airplane tickets, Christmas treesor organic beer.

[Ares]

Call me shocked that the price has risen this fast.

[Horn]

More than 200 bitcoin businesses and other merchants areparticipating in a bitcoin Black Friday shopping event, whereusers can buy everything from airplane tickets, Christmas treesor organic beer.

With a currency like that, you'd have to be stupid to spend it?

These merchants are insulting their customers with expectations of stupider than stupid clientele.

But dumb money probably draws dumber followers, I suspect...

[sirgonzo420]

With a currency like that, you'd have to be stupid to spend it?

These merchants are insulting their customers with expectations of stupider than stupid clientele.

But dumb money probably draws dumber followers, I suspect...

Yeah, Horn, we bitcoin holders are a bunch of dumbfucks.

Some of us are ridiculously wealthy, but we are dumber than hell.


But then again they say that ignorance is bliss, so who knows...

[Neuro]

Any of the holders trading it in for FRN's? Or PM's?

[sirgonzo420]

Any of the holders trading it in for FRN's? Or PM's?

Yes, as a matter of fact, some of us could buy gold and silver coins at market value, and then spend them at *face* value, and still be coming out ahead.

That's not what I'm doing, but it's a neat feeling, knowing that I could buy an ounce of silver (or as many as I feel like, kinda), say an American Eagle, for ~$20ish worth of bitcoin and then turn around a spend that ASE as one dollar, and still I would have "profited".

[Uncle Salty]

With a currency like that, you'd have to be stupid to spend it?

These merchants are insulting their customers with expectations of stupider than stupid clientele.

But dumb money probably draws dumber followers, I suspect...

If you were some tech geek in you parent's basement and bought 10,000 bitcoins years ago for fifty bucks, you think you might want to spend some now on hookers, blow, and trips to tropical islands? Um....yeah!!!

[Neuro]

Yes, as a matter of fact, some of us could buy gold and silver coins at market value, and then spend them at *face* value, and still be coming out ahead.

That's not what I'm doing, but it's a neat feeling, knowing that I could buy an ounce of silver (or as many as I feel like, kinda), say an American Eagle, for ~$20ish worth of bitcoin and then turn around a spend that ASE as one dollar, and still I would have "profited".
Taking a profit once in a while never killed anyone... What are you holding out for?

[Serpo]

Missing: hard drive containing Bitcoins worth £4m in Newport landfill site A digital 'wallet' containing 7,500 Bitcoins that James Howells generated on his laptop is buried under four feet of rubbish




http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site)

[Horn]

Taking a profit once in a while never killed anyone... What are you holding out for?

The average Joe Bitcoin shopper has between 2 and 4 (3) coins, most likely repurchased around May of this year after the great fall for around $150. Now equated to $3000

Besides cashing out under spot and paying an exchange fee, the only hard items available are priced higher than from comparative dollar merchants, due to the market knowing there is extra money there, or again those new Bitcoin merchants are just now middle men added to the market.

Most will hold to see how far it goes, then en mass cashout will proceed, the reasons for which are simple Bitcoins are virtually worthless & without any intrinsic bottom line.

Tulip bulbs were at least used to grow tulips, if you missed the fire sale you could at least make a nice flower box.

[Ponce]

You had Silicon Valley, oil, computers, housing and so on, now is the time for Bitcoins ......but remember that PM is always there, from the beginning of time till the end of time.

V

[mick silver]

mickcoin: what you need to know ... The crypto-currency is back in the news (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/bitcoin-price-silk-road-ulbricht-value) after the closure of one of its biggest marketplaces. But what is mickcoin

[mick silver]

Bitcoin could be hijacked by ‘selfish’ groups causing currency collapseConditions already exist for abuse by collective computational power to cause breakdown in digital currency, say researchers



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Samuel Gibbs (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/samuel-gibbs)


theguardian.com (http://www.theguardian.com/), Tuesday 5 November 2013 07.26 EST
Jump to comments (43) (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/05/bitcoin-hijack-research-mining#start-of-comments)

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/11/5/1383649597110/38112506-61c1-4fe7-9ed5-72b0401c175b-460x276.jpeg'Selfish miners' could club together to hijack the bitcoin digital currency, possibly causing a collapse. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

The bitcoin (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/bitcoin) digital currency could be hijacked by “selfish miners” causing honest users to lose time, effort and money.
Due to the way the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currency (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/04/bitcoin-what-you-need-to-know-silk-road) is produced through complex computational processes, a rogue group of “selfish miners” could hijack the currency and overwrite the shared record of transactions. That would wipe out the bitcoins belonging to honest users and possibly cause a collapse in the currency, say two researchers from Cornell University.
The conditions for that to happen already exist. Ittay Eyal and Emin Gun Sirer, of the computing science department at Cornell University, New York, have worked out that the selfish mining group would need more than a 33% share of the computational power currently being used for generating bitcoins.
Certain groups regularly break 25% of the global collective bitcoin mining power, and some already exceed the 33% share, the duo say.
“The bitcoin ecosystem is open to manipulation, and potential takeover, by miners seeking to maximise their rewards,” Eyal and Gun Sirer say in arecently published paper (http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/abs/1311.0243v1) on the Arxiv site. “The protocol will never be safe against attacks by a selfish mining pool that commands more than 33% of the total mining power of the network.”
Mining: time-consuming and expensiveWhile most users buy bitcoins from currency exchanges such as Mt Gox, some users produce new ones by “mining”, a process that requires computers to perform the calculations needed to make the digital currency work.
Mining is time-consuming and expensive due to the way the currency is designed. Each bitcoin is more cryptographically complex than the previous one, requiring more computational time to "mine" it, and thus investment in electricity and use of computer hardware.
Once the cryptographic calculation is complete for each bitcoin, a record of that bitcoin is written to a collectively shared ledger called the “blockchain”, which confirms that each bitcoin actually has value and has been correctly mined.
Due to the peer-to-peer nature, only the latest or longest blockchain is recognised as valid - and it is this which poses a security risk, according to the researchers.
Force honest miners into performing wasted computationsMost mining takes place in the open, with each newly produced bitcoin logged immediately in the public record. However, a “selfish” mining group operates by pooling computing resources, writing its newly calculated bitcoins to a private blockchain. Once that private blockchain is released, if it is longer than the publicly available blockchains currently in circulation it will overwrite them, destroying the value of the work done by others in preference to their own mined bitcoins.
“The key insight behind the selfish mining strategy is to force the honest miners into performing wasted computations on the stale public branch. Specifically, selfish mining forces the honest miners to spend their cycles on blocks that are destined to not be part of the blockchain,” wrote the researchers.
In effect, the rogue selfish mining group could claim more bitcoins for themselves, hijacking the currency.
To do that, “higher revenues can lead new rational miners to join selfish miner pools, leading to a collapse of the decentralised currency,” warned the researchers, who proposed a solution (http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/abs/1311.0243v1) that involves mining to random blockchains to eliminate the risk of selfish build up.
• In October, a Norwegian man discovered that his forgotten 2009 $27 investment in bitcoin had increased in value to around $886,000 (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/29/bitcoin-forgotten-currency-norway-oslo-home)

[mick silver]

FBI pranked by furious Bitcoin users since Silk Road shutdownHundreds of protest messages have flooded an FBI-controlled Bitcoin account since it seized $3m from Silk Road



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Alex Hern (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/alex-hern)


theguardian.com (http://www.theguardian.com/), Monday 7 October 2013 08.08 EDT

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Business/Pix/pictures/2013/8/29/1377782183067/Federal-Reserve-building--010.jpgProtesting against the FBI's seizure of Bitcoin crrency, one protestor called for an end to the US Federal Reserve. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The FBI has been deluged by more than 200 messages of protest from pro-drugs advocates after a raid on Silk Road, an online marketplace for illicit goods.
The agency is attempting to access 600,000 Bitcoins, worth around $80m (£49.7m), accumulated by Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator of Silk Road, but has already seized 26,000 ($3.2m (http://preev.com/)) that the site had held in escrow for its customers.
The FBI then transferred the Bitcoins to a new address on blockchain.info (http://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX?offset=0&filter=0)., which allows users to manage their Bitcoin accounts.
Unfortunately for the FBI, hundreds of Silk Road users identified the FBI's wallet details and used blockchain to post publicly viewable messages along with miniscule transactions.
Most were no larger than 0.00000001 BTC (0.0001p), but allowed users to vent their anger at the seizure of their virtual cash.
“Take the drugs, take the domain, but don't take the people's Bitcoins. This seizure was only legal because Bitcoin is not recognized as a currency,” says one.
Quoting Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the US, one called for the end of the Federal Reserve: "The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs".
"The musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs," posted another, who use six separate payments to reference comic Bill Hicks (http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/oct/25/comedy-gold-bill-hicks-relentless).
"The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.”
As well as a large number of pro-drug messages, some were arguing that the money was incorrectly seized.
“Many items sold through Silk Road were perfectly legal,” says one such note. “There is no way to know whether these funds were to be used for illicit purchases. Users should be allowed to withdraw their funds.”
Others used the opportunity to post adverts for Bitcoin-related services, and some comments were less critical.
One posted a link to an image of Ulbricht’s face (http://i.imgur.com/TiWZJ7i.jpg) superimposed with the words “sets up a multimillion-dollar drugs business. Uses real email address,” a reference to one of the many slip-ups (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested) which apparently led to the his arrest.
• Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht allegedly ran the multimillion dollar drugs empire – so why boast about its success on his LinkedIn profile (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested)?

[Ponce]

The Bitcoins , to me, is the same as the greenbacks where the bases of its value are only dots and dashes on a computer...but at least with the greenback you get to hold some paper that cost .007 cents to make.

V

[Horn]

April 10, 2013

5740

From left: Charlie Shrem, Jered Kenna, and Yifu Guo

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/meet-the-bitcoin-millionaires

(http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/meet-the-bitcoin-millionaires)
BOYCOTT all businesses associated to Alex Waters, Matt Mellon, and Yifu Guo! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=332918.0)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/11/13/sanitizing-bitcoin-coin-validation/

This service is extremely dangerous as it undermines one of the key characteristics of Bitcoin as a MONEY: their complete fungibility. Further, since all Bitcoin transactions are public and pseudonymity given by opaque addresses is our ONLY financial privacy protection, services like this should be considered a direct and malicious attack on Bitcoin system.

I suppose the CORRECT response of the community should be to BOYCOTT any business that even remotely associates itself with this evil spynet.

By now, you should probably know enough about Avalon's dishonest and deceptive business practices to boycott it on its own merits, anyway.


Jered Kenna

Tradehill Moving Forward

Many of you have come to know Tradehill as the digital currency exchange of choice. We have suspended trading on the Tradehill platform, due to banking and regulatory issues. This decision has not been made lightly and we regret having to take such action. However, we embrace the silver lining of our situation and plan to take this opportunity to upgrade, improve, and polish our trading platform.

Tradehill registered with FinCEN in August 2013 and is actively engaging with banks and regulators to continue development of future business products and practices.

We would like to thank our clients, current and past partners, supporters, and advocates for all their continued support. The Bitcoin space has proven to be an exciting and dynamic environment. We are proud to have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this new domain.

For those eager to stay informed of our trading platform and new product releases, please sign-up for our e-mail list below and we’ll keep you updated.

https://www.tradehill.com/



5741

Charles 'Charlie' Shrem IV is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of the Bitcoin startup company BitInstant and currently Vice Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation

[vacuum]

Taking a profit once in a while never killed anyone... What are you holding out for?

I think a lot are following this philosophy:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG1qooBzE2w

[Horn]

Yeah, Horn, we bitcoin holders are a bunch of dumbfucks.

Some of us are ridiculously wealthy, but we are dumber than hell.


But then again they say that ignorance is bliss, so who knows...

And have also helped to give birth to one of the worst forms of evil on our beautiful planet Earth, don't forget that part.

0% intrinsic and fully traceable on skynet will be the end result of this experiment in digital idiocy, thanks Bitcoin for that, and destroying a perfectly healthy precious metals market.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYFGRD1T9wQ

Remember your best intentions and worst evil statements, if holding any value whatsoever for the future of humanity.

[Neuro]

I think a lot are following this philosophy:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG1qooBzE2w
Classical! Bubbles bring out the denial in otherwise intelligent people!

[madfranks]

thanks Bitcoin for that, and destroying a perfectly healthy precious metals market.

You're blaming bitcoin for metals' sub-standard performance? I hate to break it to you, but the precious metals markets have been manipulated far longer than the idea of bitcoin has even existed.

[vacuum]

Classical! Bubbles bring out the denial in otherwise intelligent people!

A bubble has an overinflated price compared to what it's supposed to represent. What is bitcoin supposed to represent? A new currency, payment system, store of wealth, whatever. So it's either going to $0 or $100,000.

What happens when T-bonds collapse? When 401ks are seized? When there is a bank holiday and capital controls are put in place? When those chase policies of no international wire transfers start kicking in for people? There has been no real carnage at this point. But the carnage is coming. Bitcoin will either collapse (or be killed by tptb) at that point or it will become the new standard.

Now if the market cap is supposed to represent the actual amount of commerce done using bitcoin then it is indeed a bubble. But it's more than just a payment system, so the price includes other factors. Also there is positive news every day, like subway and newegg hinting at bitcoin support through twitter posts. Ebay seems to have some type of interest. These are probably lone individuals in those companies, but the fact is, bitcoin has lower processing fees than visa or paypal. We all hate visa and paypal. People want privacy and complete control over their money. No one wants bail-ins, capital taxes, bank account seizures, nsa monitoring all transactions, etc. But I digress.

[vacuum]

http://i.imgur.com/5Zo5uzt.gif

[Horn]

You're blaming bitcoin for metals' sub-standard performance? I hate to break it to you, but the precious metals markets have been manipulated far longer than the idea of bitcoin has even existed.

All markets currently available are manipulated.

In some cases the shear volume of dumb slave and libertards can make a healthy difference, attention itself probably the major decider.

Yes, they've been sold a box of nothing to exchange.

[Neuro]

A bubble has an overinflated price compared to what it's supposed to represent. What is bitcoin supposed to represent? A new currency, payment system, store of wealth, whatever. So it's either going to $0 or $100,000.

What happens when T-bonds collapse? When 401ks are seized? When there is a bank holiday and capital controls are put in place? When those chase policies of no international wire transfers start kicking in for people? There has been no real carnage at this point. But the carnage is coming. Bitcoin will either collapse (or be killed by tptb) at that point or it will become the new standard.

Now if the market cap is supposed to represent the actual amount of commerce done using bitcoin then it is indeed a bubble. But it's more than just a payment system, so the price includes other factors. Also there is positive news every day, like subway and newegg hinting at bitcoin support through twitter posts. Ebay seems to have some type of interest. These are probably lone individuals in those companies, but the fact is, bitcoin has lower processing fees than visa or paypal. We all hate visa and paypal. People want privacy and complete control over their money. No one wants bail-ins, capital taxes, bank account seizures, nsa monitoring all transactions, etc. But I digress.
$12 Billions is far to much, for a currency that a computer whizz got done in a month. People don't buy it now because its ease of use, its transferability, its secrecy, they buy it because they think it can bring them short term profit...

[EE_]

$12 Billions is far to much, for a currency that a computer whizz got done in a month. People don't buy it now because its ease of use, its transferability, its secrecy, they buy it because they think it can bring them short term profit...

Ya think?
Is bitcoin really a competing currency to the dollar...when it's purchased with dollars.
The Fed probably likes all these dollars cycling through bitcoin. The dollar must keep moving.

[vacuum]

$12 Billions is far to much, for a currency that a computer whizz got done in a month. People don't buy it now because its ease of use, its transferability, its secrecy, they buy it because they think it can bring them short term profit...

It definitely is a ponzi scheme in the short term, but then in the long term it has scale and value. People's greed is jumpstarting it until it is big enough to self-sustain.

[Horn]

No one wants bail-ins, capital taxes, bank account seizures, nsa monitoring all transactions, etc. But I digress.

Yes, you should digress, as none of those would stand a chance at making any headway any longer anyway.

The makers will provide us with fully traceable intrinsic nothingness as a substitute to those terms (which have been played already).

What else could (come out of) or be created from today's world, but the elevation of worthless nothing into something of worth.

Its just a natural extension of the mental illness already taken seed. Know them by their fruits, the only thing Bitcoin has managed to create is multiple hackers and frauds.

EE_ is correct its achilles is the No Back button, spineless jellybit.

[Spectrism]

A rise like this is a warning to bail out. Exponential growth is destined to crash.

[madfranks]

A rise like this is a warning to bail out. Exponential growth is destined to crash.

I sold at $400. So far I regret it.

[Horn]

I sold at $400. So far I regret it.

That's because your waiting to get back in, go buy some silver with it mr.Franks.

You'll feel better knowing you're not participating with lemmings in the destruction of all humanity.

[Ares]

That's because your waiting to get back in, go buy some silver with it mr.Franks.

You'll feel better knowing you're not participating with lemmings in the destruction of all humanity.

:rolleyes: