The Bitcoin Tracking Thread

[Son-of-Liberty]

The problem the bankers have with Bitcoin is they can't suppress the price with counterfeit coins. With gold and silver and the miners they can just create more paper to flood the market with and give the appearance of unlimited supply.

To suppress the bitcoin price they would have to sell bitcoins into the market. To do that they would have to buy bitcoins first which would drive the price higher. So they can't play games like they can with PM's.

This leaves them with hacking, and denial of service attacks to try and disrupt the market.

[steyr_m]

Nah, it wasn't hacked. They suffered a DDoS attack.

I was wondering why it was flat-lining yesterday

[Ares]

The problem the bankers have with Bitcoin is they can't suppress the price with counterfeit coins. With gold and silver and the miners they can just create more paper to flood the market with and give the appearance of unlimited supply.

To suppress the bitcoin price they would have to sell bitcoins into the market. To do that they would have to buy bitcoins first which would drive the price higher. So they can't play games like they can with PM's.

This leaves them with hacking, and denial of service attacks to try and disrupt the market.

Yep, which is why I'm a fan of bitcoins. It cannot be manipulated like Gold / silver, fiat can be. No central issuing authority and has the potential to completely disrupt tyrannical governments the world over, including our own.

[steyr_m]

I dunno, I reading some guys slagging it last night. Why?

FRN, CAD, Euro, GBP are worse that BTC to me. Those currencies have value by decree and is set by Central Banks in terms of inflation.

Of all places, I would think this is the last place to see people balk at BTC. It has everything going for it. -- No-one owns it or controls it; it has the potential to be a defacto globally accepted currency; payments can be made totally anonymously for the payer and recipient; easily convertible to cash or PMs.

What's not to like about it?

[Horn]

What's not to like about it?

The program is set up so that there will be 21 million mined Bitcoins by 2140, and then it stops (there are about 11 million Bitcoins in circulation today).Each transaction has a unique digital signature so that everyone in the network can keep track of every Bitcoin and prevent counterfeiting or double-counting. Because the number of new Bitcoins is set to grow at predetermined rate, their value can’t be diluted or inflated away, they are far more portable than normal currency for use in online transactions, and they can be denominated down to 0.00000001, a “Satoshi” (named after Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto). This has all the properties of a medieval mint -- security, limited supplies, and trustworthy denominations -- but is entirely decentralized.

t's a remarkable success, but it won't be the future of money. Even putting aside security problems -- not surprisingly, a digital currency is a favorite target of hackers -- there’s the potential that Bitcoin will turn from a way of doing anonymous, simple digital transactions and into a speculative-asset investment item, especially if it continues to soar in price. That might promote hoarding of Bitcoins by early adopters and choke off the marketplace.
Although transactions haven’t fallen off a cliff yet, a currency whose value is distinctly bubble-tastic is not something that even digital libertarians will readily spend.

Here’s where a state could easily step in by just … printing more money, so that economic activity is not choked off by scarcity or hoarding. This would be totally consistent with the C View, where money is created by states to facilitate economic activity. But since Bitcoins can only be produced at a predetermined rate, deflation is a constant possibility, or that Bitcoins turn more into a commodity people buy than a currency people use.

It's a remarkable success, but it won't be the future of money. Even putting aside security problems -- not surprisingly, a digital currency is a favorite target of hackers -- there’s the potential that Bitcoin will turn from a way of doing anonymous, simple digital transactions and into a speculative-asset investment item, especially if it continues to soar in price. That might promote hoarding of Bitcoins by early adopters and choke off the marketplace. Although transactions haven’t fallen off a cliff yet, a currency whose value is distinctly bubble-tastic is not something that even digital libertarians will readily spend.
Here’s where a state could easily step in by just … printing more money, so that economic activity is not choked off by scarcity or hoarding. This would be totally consistent with the C View, where money is created by states to facilitate economic activity. But since Bitcoins can only be produced at a predetermined rate, deflation is a constant possibility, or that Bitcoins turn more into a commodity people buy than a currency people use.
Even if Bitcoin remains a niche item for online libertarians, it is still a potent lesson in monetary economics. Call it the B View.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...he-future.html

[madfranks]

Here’s where a state could easily step in by just … printing more money, so that economic activity is not choked off by scarcity or hoarding. This would be totally consistent with the C View, where money is created by states to facilitate economic activity.

I know you didn't write that article Horn, but nobody on this forum should take this argument seriously. It's the same argument why gold shouldn't be money, because it can't be printed. They fear deflation, they fear a valuable money, they think a valuable money will kill the economy, when in fact a valuable money is the bedrock of a prosperous economy.

[Horn]

I know you didn't write that article Horn, but nobody on this forum should take this argument seriously. It's the same argument why gold shouldn't be money, because it can't be printed. They fear deflation, they fear a valuable money, they think a valuable money will kill the economy, when in fact a valuable money is the bedrock of a prosperous economy.

Gold has yet to be finite. Bitcoin is, i think anyway. Or at least the article states it is.

Finite money creates only death.

[Hitch]

Finite money creates only death.

I asked this question awhile back and did not receive any concrete answer.

Money supply needs to grow at the same rate as the population, in order to maintain some sort of stability. With bitcoin, too many folks rush into it, and the price soars. There's only 21 million bitcoins (so they say). That means bitcoin, if used as a viable currency, has a capped limit to it's future. It maybe an investment, but not a currency. Currencies must move and change hands. You can park wealth in investments. Bitcoin, to prosper, must be able to grow, at a stable rate, with demand and the population.

This is why gold and silver seem to be the best currency. You can mine them, creating jobs, etc...and pull enough out of the ground to keep up with population growth....

Anyway, what do I know, I'm a blue collar guy who has greasy fingernails.

[madfranks]

Butterfly labs just doubled their prices for mining rigs. Congrats if you bought one before the jump: http://www.butterflylabs.com/

[Horn]

Anyway, what do I know, I'm a blue collar guy who has greasy fingernails.

Imagine had you (the unwashed mass) never come to know the cleanliness which is GSUS.