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Bitcoin - Peer to Peer currency

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Re: Bitcoin

pacestick said:
I am afraid that is not correct despite news reports bitcoin itself has not been hacked . What has been hacked is peoples personal and online wallets held by companies . This has ocurred exactly the same way as if they had used weak passwords on their bank accounts and made the account name known another illustration is that to have such a weak password or to have a central server to hold your wallet is like putting money on the front lawn and wondering why it isnt there the next day. AS far as the encryption level is concerned the encryption cannot be broken untill quantum computers arrive due about one decade on
Click to expand...

Well obviously Bitcoin itself can't be hacked as there is no such thing. The important bit which is your wallet, CAN be hacked as has been before, so your point is invalid. It's not really like a weak password actually, as banks have more than one security measure, when I go onto online banking I have 4 sets of numbers to put in, AND it's all encrypted as well, also there's the fact that you would be hacking a bank and be in deep shizen, but because there's no governing body and no physical thing with Bitcoin, the person being hacked just gets screwed.......unless they improve things somehow.

As far as encryption goes, they've said in the past that a lot of encryption methods would NEVER be hacked, trust me, it won't be long.
 
Re: Bitcoin

BitCoin's biggest threat is from the US/EUR's central banks. They can't outright ban/destroy it. What they can do is manipulate the market so it becomes so unstable it loses its appeal. Will they succeed? Is it a bubble? Finally a liberal currency as currency was intended in its most basic sense? Time will tell and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.
 
Re: Bitcoin

Having purchased a small speculative holding just before the november increase and then sold bitcoins up to my original holding I intend to sell down at regular periods as the value of my holdings increase . I am uncertain at this stage whether to sell at predetermined dates i.e.end of each quarter sell half the previous quarters gain or predetermined amounts perhaps selling half of each gain everytime it doubles I do this becuause I do realise that it is the most speculative holding I have ever had . Others who I know hold larger amounts are prepared to hold for longer .
 
Re: Bitcoin

ThingyMajiggy said:
I still don't understand how it can be worth as much as Gold, I get the whole only a limited amount of it and we don't know how much Gold there is, but still, Gold is real and pure and is actually worth something, always has, there isn't any actual THING with bitcoin, just some thought up electronic currency, computer/phone/tablet crashes and unless you have some serious back up solution you've lost the lot, and that seems like a fairly realistic scenario.
Click to expand...

Gold only has arbitrary value. Its actual practical value is less than 10% of its commercial value. It's handy in electronics and corrosion resistant stuff, but we primarily store it in warehouses or wear it as trinkets, which shows that it doesn't have inherent value, just sentimental. There are plenty of rare physical elements other than gold which are not as valuable, we just didn't decide to put inflated value on most of them. Gold is pretty and is unusual in existing in a metalic state in nature. Even though that's not especially relevant today (and hasn't been for a long time) we like it for traditional reasons.

Sure, bitcoins don't have a physical existence, but would printing out a piece of paper with "1 Bitcoin" on it for every bitcoin make them more valuable?

It's very interesting. Most of the arguments used against bitcoins having value can be used equally for both gold and money. All of them can be used for either gold or money (or both).

I was sceptical about bitcoins at first, because it was just some random thing which someone made and anyone else could have recreated, but perhaps being the first to catch this much attention means it will become the big one which lasts. If Google hadn't come along someone else would have had that monopoly, they were just the best in the early days. If Facebook hadn't been there another mob would have gained the monopoly on online social media. Perhaps the evolution of a non nation-based non-physical currency was inevitable, and Bitcoin just got in there with a good enough product at the right time. Then again, maybe Bitcoin's flaws will become more obvious in time and Bitcoin will be to the next one as Myspace was to Facebook. Or perhaps the bitcoin fad will just end.
 
Re: Bitcoin

bitcoin verses tulips


3 fundamentally different characteristics between Tulip Bulbs and Bitcoin:

Tulips were certainly not highly divisible, not even divisible at all – One of the fundamental aspects of money is that it must be highly divisible (Like Bitcoin or the Australian Dollar). This characteristic allows the users of the money to trade as close as possible to the gravitational centre of a natural market price and is discussed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. If a type of money is not highly divisible it is very crude and insecure to conduct trade (Imagine trying to buy a hamburger from a takeaway shop and only being allowed to conduct the trade in $100 notes). When I refer to the natural market price I am referring to what the good, service or money would be worth on the market discounting limitations of divisibility characteristics when exchanged. This term is different to the ‘Real Price’ or the ‘Market Price’. If you divided a tulip during the Tulip Mania period its price would become zero.
Majority of Tulips were traded on futures contracts – Futures contracts are instruments which specify a commodity or financial instrument will be bought or sold at a future date. During the height of the Tulip Mania period nearly all of the Tulips were traded on futures contracts. In contrast, the futures contract market for Bitcoin is essentially non-existent. It is possible for futures contracts to play a fundamental role in the instability of the commodity or financial instrument they reference through the enforcement of their trade (Usually by a government) and this is precisely what happened during the Tulip Mania. The futures contracts also catalyse a dissipation of divisibility when more than one commodity is referenced in the contract.
Tulips were not fungible – All Tulips exert different characteristics and some were much rarer than others. This is different to a $100 Dollar bill which is exchangeable for another $100 Dollar bill.
 
Re: Bitcoin

Characteristics of a bubble:

Participants believe this bubble is different and proceed to provide examples why this is so....:D
 
Re: Bitcoin

CanOz said:
Characteristics of a bubble:

Participants believe this bubble is different and proceed to provide examples why this is so....:D
Click to expand...

Or uncles who are in the earth moving business suggest they are thinking about entering the market.

"Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr later claimed he knew the rampant stock speculation of the late 1920s would lead to a market crash. It is said that he knew it was time to get out of the market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy"
 
Re: Bitcoin

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-...-for-online-currency/5231178?section=business

ATMs being rolled in Australia for online currency Bitcoin

Updated Fri 31 Jan 2014, 3:52pm AEDT

A new company is planning to roll out 100 ATMs in Australia for the virtual currency Bitcoin. However, there are ongoing concerns about the lack of regulation and volatility of the online money.
Natalie Whiting

Source: The World Today | Duration: 3min 11sec

Topics: currency, internet-culture, internet-technology, australia

Transcript

PETER LLOYD: The virtual currency Bitcoin is about to come crashing into the real world, with plans to install 100 Bitcoin ATMs around the country.

The online form of money is currently estimated to be worth an astonishing $10 billion, but there are increasing concerns about the lack of regulation surrounding this new currency.

Natalie Whiting reports.

(Sound of ATM buttons being pressed)

NATALIE WHITING: You can find an ATM on most city streets. Now there's a plan to start installing Bitcoin ATMs. But some people are still hesitant about using the online currency.

ALEX: If there was more regulation I guess I'd feel a lot more comfortable using it.

JOEL: I just don't see too much trust from the big banks and corporations in the system just yet.

LUKE: Without a doubt, it is the future. I'm not quite sure whether society has actually caught up with that yet.

NATALIE WHITING: Bitcoin is traded computer to computer and has no central authority or government backing. It's primarily used to purchase goods on the internet, and has no transaction fees.

A new company, Australian Bitcoin ATMs, is now planning to roll out 100 machines to try to increase the use of the currency.

The company's CEO is Chris Guzowski.

CHRIS GUZOWSKI: You can type in how many Bitcoins you want to sell, then our ATM goes onto an overseas Bitcoin exchange and executes that transaction for you and will spit out the cash for which you sold the Bitcoin for. And the opposite also applies, so you can put cash in and purchase Bitcoin.

NATALIE WHITING: There have been issues in the past with computers being hacked and Bitcoins being stolen.

David Glance from the University of Western Australia says he thinks it will take more than ATMs to facilitate mass adoption.

DAVID GLANCE: I think that until you see the National Australia Bank or the Commonwealth or one of the major banks getting behind the currency, providing simplified access to it, I think it's always going to be a niche.

NATALIE WHITING: He says the lack of regulation in Australia is also a major issue.

DAVID GLANCE: In the US they're currently going through some discussions about the regulation of Bitcoin exchanges. We haven't really got there as such in Australia. This has been the problem with sites going out of business or people just shutting up shop - it quite often leads to people losing their investments.

NATALIE WHITING: But regulation isn't the only issue with Bitcoin. It's also very volatile, with values fluctuating by as much as 50 per cent in a day.

CHRIS GUZOWSKI: Well I think most Bitcoin adopters so far have been aware of the risk associated with purchasing the digital cryptocurrency.

NATALIE WHITING: Do you think it might hinder bringing new people on board; if the introduction of ATMs is about making it more accessible and more mainstream, do you think people won't be willing to take that risk?

CHRIS GUZOWSKI: Look it's possible. It's no secret, and everybody should be aware of the risk profile of Bitcoin.

NATALIE WHITING: The Bitcoin ATMs will begin to be rolled out next month, with the first to be installed in Sydney and Melbourne.

PETER LLOYD: Natalie Whiting reporting.
 
Re: Bitcoin

:)http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...s-yuan-deposits/story-fnay3ubk-1226816164326#
Bitcoin exchange resumes yuan deposits

Michael Casey
The Wall Street Journal
February 03, 2014 12:00AM





POPULAR Chinese bitcoin exchange BTC China has restored a facility allowing customers to buy bitcoin by depositing yuan into the exchange's corporate bank account.

The move reverses a decision in December to halt such deposits, which the exchange made in response to a December 5 memo from the People's Bank of China warning national financial institutions not to trade in bitcoin.

Those twin developments threatened to curtail volumes on BTC China, which had grown to become the biggest exchange in the world, and prompted a more than 50 per cent drop in bitcoin's international price over a two-week period in December.

At the time, some of bitcoin's harshest critics even described them as the death knell for the digital currency.

Reached by phone in Shanghai, BTC China chief executive Bobby Lee said the change, which was implemented last Thursday, was made after the company studied the PBOC memo and other rules that raised concerns about BTC's banking activities.

The exchange determined that it was legally permitted to accept deposits into its corporate bank account and to transfer those funds into customer accounts, even though banks themselves are barred from engaging in bitcoin businesses and speculation.

"We are definitely in compliance with the December 5 memo, but the government and the government agencies can change the rules anytime," Mr Lee said. "So we are going to take a wait-and-see approach."

Bitcoin, the most prominent of a host of new virtual currencies, is created by a global network of digital "miners", whose computers discover them via complex computations and then serve as protectors of the integrity of the virtual money supply. They can be transferred seamlessly and internationally between digital "wallets".

Regulators the world over are trying to figure out how to regulate commerce in the currency, with the uncertainty surrounding that process impeding its adoption and - as with the PBOC's move in December - sometimes weighing on its price.

The New York Department of Financial Services held two days of hearings last week to try to come up with a framework for regulating digital currencies. This followed news that New York US Attorney Preet Bharara had arrested two men, including prominent bitcoin entrepreneur Charlie Shrem, on charges of helping users of the illicit drug-trading website Silk Road launder money through bitcoin exchanges.
 
Re: Bitcoin

Bitcoin prices have plunged but not to other recent lows .
The timeline went like this
1. Russia band bitcoin
2. A flood of bitcoin is recieved at Mt Gox for changing into fiat currenccy
3. Mt Gox stops processing for technical reasons as per linked article
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-07/bitcoin-price-falls-as-mt-gox-exchange-halts-activity.html
4. Bitcoin price begins recovery

Mt Gox have said they intend to be operating again by monday. I am left with the suspicion that their pool of fiat currency wasnt big enough to cope with the demand rather than it being a computer problem but we dont know
 
Re: Bitcoin

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox’s withdrawal halt prompts SecondMarket action
February 7, 2014, 12:52 PM


A temporary halt on withdrawals from the bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox on Friday and subsequent price decline have prompted trading platform SecondMarket to start a pilot program to buy and sell bitcoin, a move it says highlights the need for a major U.S.-based bitcoin exchange.

SecondMarket, which made its name as a platform that allowed investors to trade shares of Facebook Inc. FB 0.06% before the company went public, has established itself in the bitcoin space through its open-ended bitcoin trust.

“Given the MtGox issue, we decided to experiment with a two-way market,” Chief Executive Barry Silbert said in an email Friday about the company’s pilot program. “There is a clear need for a U.S.-based, regulated, compliant and trustworthy bitcoin exchange. This could be the first step in that direction,” he said.

There is no major bitcoin exchange based in the U.S., even as U.S. investors are pouring millions into domestic bitcoin start-ups and U.S. companies are beginning to adopt the virtual currency as payment.

Saumya Vaishampayan/MarketWatch
Informal trading at the Bitcoin Center NYC

The lack of a major bitcoin exchange in the world’s biggest economy has contributed to the volatility that has become a trademark of the virtual currency, Jeremy Allaire, chief executive of Circle Internet Financial, said in a January virtual-currency hearing held by the New York State Department of Financial Services. The total daily trading volume of bitcoin is similar to that of a small-cap stock on one exchange, he said.

That much was evident Friday in the wake of the Mt. Gox news, which sent prices lower across exchanges. “The increase in the flow of withdrawal requests has hindered our efforts on a technical level. To understand the issue thoroughly, the system needs to be in a static state,” the company said in a release Friday.

Mt. Gox, which is based in Japan, isn’t even the largest bitcoin exchange. The largest by 30-day volume is Bitstamp, which based in Slovenia, according to data from bitcoincharts.com. The second-biggest is BTC-e, which appears to be based in Bulgaria. Mt. Gox is third.

“The single most important thing that we can do…is get some serious exchanges established here in New York,” Circle’s Allaire said at the hearing. Circle is a company that aims to make bitcoin payments easier for merchants.

There are companies working on establishing bitcoin exchanges in New York, but witnesses at the hearing pointed to the regulatory uncertainty and reluctance from banks to work with bitcoin companies as major hurdles.

In recent trade, bitcoin traded at $741.30 on the bitcoin exchange Bitstamp and $763 on Mt. Gox. That’s a decline from trading around $900 earlier this week on Mt. Gox and in the early $800s in the same period on BitStamp. Here’s a two-month chart of prices on Bitstamp:

Bitcoincharts.com



–Saumya Vaishampayan
wall street journal
 
Re: Bitcoin

What I find amazing is the amount of people who wont look at bitcoin because it has been used by criminal elements yet they use cash which cannot be traced at all as opposed to bitcoin that can be traced to each and every previous owner by those with the computer knowledge to do so
 
Re: Bitcoin

pacestick said:
What I find amazing is the amount of people who wont look at bitcoin because it has been used by criminal elements yet they use cash which cannot be traced at all as opposed to bitcoin that can be traced to each and every previous owner by those with the computer knowledge to do so
Click to expand...

Can it always be traced? Do I need to enter personal details to get a bitcoin wallet? Could someone, say, get a wallet without using any personal details, sell a lawnmower in exchange for some bitcoins, then use those bitcoins to buy pizza (or guns and bombs or whatever)?

I really don't fully understand the details of how bitcoin works. I understand you could check the block chain to see which account sent you the money, but what information can anyone gain from getting a wallet address/label/whatever it's called? I made a bitcoin wallet (unless it was just a scam site and I created nothing), it cost me nothing and I didn't enter any personal details. My understanding is that I could then give that 'wallet number' ( ? ) to anyone, and they could send bitcoins to it, though I'm not sure how I would send someone else bitcoins.

I had a look at a couple of bitcoin forums, and they were littered with obvious scams along the lines of "Donate here to xyz charity, we're going to save the whales/kittens/starving/send a space ship out to promote bitcoin". I found the space ship ones really bizarre! By donating to one 'bitcoin promotion by spaceship' charity you could get advertising space on it, the more you donated the more advertising space you got (put your slogan or logo on the hull so people will see it on TV? ???). I suppose if you donate 10c worth of bitcoin you get a microscopic banner, and for it to be readable you'd have to send a few million dollars worth, so the hull would basically look brown unless you viewed it with a microscope. Obviously entirely scam and fictional of course, but amazingly there were people claiming to have donated to them (unless that was the scammers claiming to be people donating and happy about it to encourage real people to do it). So, obviously that's an example of something completely and transparently illegal for multiple reasons. If I was stupid enough to donate to such a thing, then come to my senses, would I be able to get my money back? I assume these scammers are successfully remaining anonymous.
 
Re: Bitcoin

Can it always be traced?

Yes

----

Do I need to enter personal details to get a Bitcoin Wallet?

No

----

Could someone say, get a wallet without using any personal details, sell a lawnmower in exchange for some Bitcoins, then use those Bitcoin to buy pizza (or guns and bombs or whatever)?

Yes, but only if they accept Bitcoin

----

But what information can anyone gain from getting a wallet address/label/whatever its called?

Any person can determine the history of all deposits and withdrawls from that address, no other information can be gained. The only way to discover your identity (Provided you don't expose the information willingly), the person looking say police, would need first of all to 1: discover the IP address by determining it from the Bitcoin ledger. 2. Get a court order to make your ISP release your personal details to them. 3. It is a matter of record that different ISP's purchase a band of ip addresses. 4. The ISP knows which of their customers has which IP address.

----

My understanding is that I could then give that give that wallet number (Bitcoin Address) to anyone, and they could send Bitcoins to it

Yes

----

Though im not sure how I would send someone else bitcoins

You would need their Bitcoin Address and then you could send them

----
Re the advertising on bitcoin chatrooms like all scams such as the nigerian letter scam if youi send money to them dont expect it back
 

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