Bitcoin Value Plunges as DDoS Strikes Currency Exchanges
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It's not backed by anything other than the computer time used to process the transactions and the fact that people consider it to have value.Vilealbaniandwarf said:
Most national currencies aren't any better. They just have their value based on the authority of the government issuing it. That's what Fiat Currency means. If the country gets conquered by another, the conqueror can declare the currency no longer valid.
Yeah, those dirty commies, eh? While here, in the glorious West, we can use whichever currency we want! Dollars! Euros! Colorful rocks! Pearls!Phrozenflame500 said:
Wait, what do you mean colorful rocks and pearls aren't legally recognized forms of payment in USA? I thought it was a free country!
Correction. You don't get rich by not lucking out on the risks you took, and I hear tissues might become a big market in UK.Dogstile said:
Also, just to be a little cheeky. Just how much of a "risk" did you take, anyway? I mean, you speak with the firm tone of someone who was willing to put everything at stake to, how do you say, "improve himself"...but I highly doubt the stakes were anywhere near that high.
There's still plenty of time for things to happen, in any case.
They aren't, but you can still accept them if you have a colourful rock fetish or something. And in the US, <a href=http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx>private businesses have the right to refuse accepting US$ and develop their own policy for accepting currency. They aren't illegal here, like Bitcoin is in Russia.Vegosiux said:
You say that, but lets see what you say when someone gives you a Liberty Dollar [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar] back as change. You have to be very careful when making Monopoly Money. You also have to be licensed to trade in it or you'll be violating Money Laundering laws. You also can't pay employees in Monopoly Money without following the rules very closely, or you'll run a foul of Labor Laws. As much as it isn't technically illegal to create a psudo currency, and the ethics of using monopoly money(economic term not game term see also Company Script) to create effective slaves a la Walmart in Mexico, creating it legally is tricky and may as well be illegal.Phrozenflame500 said:
I smell a good profit here. DDoS the server. value plunges. buy up the coin. stop DDoSing, value raises, sell the coin.
Why is bread worth anything? because you are willing to pay money for it. And to get money you are willing to work. so if we take out the middle man, you are ready to work for bread. and bitcoin is as much a middleman based on trust as us dollars.
If you use dedicated mining rig, or are willnig to invest into a farm like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcRY50cO2mA
then it certainly is worth mining.
Yes, i can use colorful rocks and pearls provided the other person accepts it as a payment. now, since the other person lacks belief in thier value, he does not, meanwhile he does not lack belief in bitcoin. those that dont - wont let you pay with bitcoins. the same could be seen with fiat currencies when suddenly Belarus currency became worthless outside of the country once the other countries stopped trusting it and banks refused to trade it (it wasnt a political embargo mind you, banks decided to stop tradingo n thier own).
All payments that are not made in local currency is considered payments in nature or w/e the correct english word is, that means you pay with items. Money are also items just as much as pearls, however we as a nation agreed that it is easier if we have a signle dividable object we can use as a middleman. after all, i cant pay half a horse for your potatoes, but i can pay money for it and after two trades you can buy a horse from me for the same money.
yes it is. There is even actually a GabeNcoin - in the name of our lord ans saviuor GabeN http://www.gabencoin.org/ Though its circulation so far has been limited to Reddit as far as i know http://www.reddit.com/r/gaben_coincastlewise said:Wait Dogecoin is a real thing? I thought that was something that LRR make up for the X ways to Kickstarter video
wait what? how does me not buying cryptocurrency makes me an idiot?Scrumpmonkey said:
Promises of exchange markets and belief in its value. Just like every other currency. Sure, governments have some actual property to back things behind, but it hardly ever comprises enough. Coutnries like mine where the central bank acutally has enough gold to cover 30% of my currency value are rare exceptions.Vilealbaniandwarf said:
Why is bread worth anything? because you are willing to pay money for it. And to get money you are willing to work. so if we take out the middle man, you are ready to work for bread. and bitcoin is as much a middleman based on trust as us dollars.
if your are mining on your laptop - certainly.JarinArenos said:
If you use dedicated mining rig, or are willnig to invest into a farm like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcRY50cO2mA
then it certainly is worth mining.
you seem to be under wrong impression that maximum of regular money supply is stable. Its not. central banks change it all the time to their liking.Jeroenr said:
More like dirty authoritarians, since in communism its actually communal rule, but thats not the topic here.Vegosiux said:
Yes, i can use colorful rocks and pearls provided the other person accepts it as a payment. now, since the other person lacks belief in thier value, he does not, meanwhile he does not lack belief in bitcoin. those that dont - wont let you pay with bitcoins. the same could be seen with fiat currencies when suddenly Belarus currency became worthless outside of the country once the other countries stopped trusting it and banks refused to trade it (it wasnt a political embargo mind you, banks decided to stop tradingo n thier own).
All payments that are not made in local currency is considered payments in nature or w/e the correct english word is, that means you pay with items. Money are also items just as much as pearls, however we as a nation agreed that it is easier if we have a signle dividable object we can use as a middleman. after all, i cant pay half a horse for your potatoes, but i can pay money for it and after two trades you can buy a horse from me for the same money.
Taking risks is not a all or nothing deal. I could have taken an extra 100 from my pay, invested into stocks (or bitcoins), earned 300 from it, took that 100 back and used the other 200 to invest further. at this point i have no chance of loosing anything other than my profit made from the investment, and as such my risk becomes minimal, yet i can still earn a lot of money if i invest visely (and get lucky).
I'm well aware how banks work.Strazdas said:
But they are backed by national economy's, this does level the big spikes.
In the Euro zone, even when greece messed up big time, the Euro didn't freefall.
But my point is the value of you currecy doesn't vary that much if you stay within you countries borders.
prices don't change in the shops if the Dollar drops in value compared to the Euro.
And internatiol, a value drop of 40 to 50% is not likely
So espacaly on local markets, a real bank will do just fine.
off topic:
I dont know the forum etiquettefor this.
I find replying to a post with so many quotes a bit of a bother.
They key to your faulty logic is it is only everyone "you" know.Dogstile said:
For example,
Lets say person A invests 50 of their 100 to buy from Person C
Some time passes and it doubles in "value"
Then person B invests 100 of their 100 to buy person A's Bitcoin
Person A has 150 and person B has 0 and person C has 50
The problem should be obvious that there is no combination where every player "doubles" their original investment. It is simply a game of hot potato.
There is an economic scenarios were it will appear that everyone is making money, but what's happening is early investors are simply profiting off the later investors. In that case it is ether a Pyramid Scheme, Ponzi scheme, or Tulip Bulb Mania. All of those collapse right when the amount of suckers entering the market no longer meet or exceed the scammers leaving the market.
Now you might think that it's just a bubble like in the Housing Market, or Stock Market, but you'd be wrong. In the case of a Market bubble it's similar to Tulip Mania, but with the difference that there is actual value, but it's just been over valued 2 or 3 times. A house still is a home, and supplies shelter, and that Value is retained even if the market isn't estimating it rationally. A tulip bulb that is being sold for 1000% times it's actual value is worthless when it collapses. There is no way a single tulip bulb is ever worth the value of land or of a home, but under a Mania it will be traded as such. Up until the big crash happens when every suckers money is in the market. Even people who got out early suffered when the Tulip Mania crashed so saying that the people "you" know are fine could just be naivety. It's never a good thing when you got money out of a scam but your friends and family got caught with the potato because "you" encouraged them to invest.
So what is the "value" of a bitcoin. You might want to say it's the electricity used to create and maintain it. However, that's its cost not its value. Its value is actually Zero. You might say, but the USD has the same issue. Incorrect, the value of the US Dollar is only Zero to Ron Paul Libertarians who want to destroy the US Government. The Value of the US Dollar is the Value of the Land the US is on, the value of its citizens, the value of its homes, the value of its resources, and, arguably its most important asset, its military might. BitCoin has none of those things, and never will. If it gets in trouble there is no central authority to respond. Bitcoiners can just "leave" it, but renouncing your Citizenship is actually very complicated, and doing so means you will probably have to leave since defecting is one of the few ways to do it unless its to resolve an issue with duel citizenship. There is far more stable value in the USD then there ever will be in BTC.
Yes, it does, level some spikes, however as in the case of the recent crysis economy spikes exist as well and still technically central bank can do whatever it wants with limiting the supply of money. obviously, it usually chooses to act wisely, because stable economy are beneficial to it, but that does not mean we got a hardcap on our currency that cant just be lifted.Jeroenr said:
Greece messing up didnt make Euro freefall (though it did dipped quite hard in the market) because Euro is not used by Greece only. Had it been used by Greece only it would have felt. There are recent examples of this, the 2000 Iceland national defaulting or the freefall of Belarus rubles during the economical collapse recently.
Euro has the benefit of multiple nations, which means that if one nation falls others can carry the weight till it gets back on the feet, this is why it is very hard to kill Euro as a currency.
Yes, the market value does nto drop as rapidly as bitcoins. However if you know your history - it used to back when currencies first introduced. Bitcoin is barely few years old. When my countries currency was introduced after the fall os soviet union we had up to 100% inflation for a few years and it took over 10 years to stabilise. similar can be sid about many other currencies, so bitcoins may stabilize in time as well unless speculators blow it to kingdom come (and i know they are causing a bubble now already)
As for many quotes, i realize it is not easy thing to read though and i am sorry, but i find it to be the better option than double or triple posting. Moderators have not complained about it as far as im aware nor could i find a limit of quotes in the rules.
Its not faulty if the only thing i'm arguing against is that its stupid to invest in the first place. Its not, its a tool to make money if played correctly. Yes, it lacks a stable base like a national currency, which makes it fluctuate a lot. This is a good thing, because that means that you can buy low and sell high in waves by studying the trends and keeping track of the news. For example, we knew a month before China backed out that it was going to. We sold a week before China dropped and made a hell of a lot of cash.medv4380 said:
Yes there is risk, that's half the fun. Now we're doing it with cash that we've made, so we're in the clear, we're not losing money anymore. If we lose what we have, it doesn't backrupt us, because we're at a profit and trading purely in coins that we've made by trading.
Yes, this means there are dumb people who heard about it and went "i'll give this a try" before losing everything. To say the entire practice is dumb because of those people is weird, seeing as exploiting those people is kind of the point of the service.
I really like that bitcoin isn't stable right now. It makes situations that are easy to profit on happen much faster than they do in a normal currency.
Whilst it is a joke and everything, people donating Dogecoin has paid for a few athletes to get to the winter olympics who wouldnt have been able to otherwise.SL33TBL1ND said:
I love dogecoin, it's a very lighthearted joke, the only people who seem to dislike it/the idea of it are the Bitcoin fanatics
JarinArenos said:
The same is true of actual money and a lot of bitcoiners defend bitcoin because it is closer to the "gold standard". (There is a finite limit on the amount of currency on the market) The truth is that at it's core concept (That's all it started as, a proof of concept) It's not a bad idea. Once it was taken onboard by the people who liked the idea of a de-centralized currency. (Libertarians, Black Market dealers, Speculators) It took off. It's very much a bubble and a scam in one.Vilealbaniandwarf said:
I neither said it couldn't be used for anything, nor that I dislike it, nor did I say anywhere that I'm some sort of Bitcoin proponent. So, cool story, I guess.Tropicaz said:
I'll keep this saved. Rarely do I see a bitcoiner actually claim that it's a Ponzi Scheme. Usually they fight tooth an nail to shun the stigma. Otherwise new marks won't join in. But you boldly and proudly pronounce your intentions as to exploit the new people joining in. Congrats on getting the Madoff Achievement in life and actually embracing it.Dogstile said:
And to reaffirm. It is completely dumb because it's little more than a scam to get rich quick. Regardless what the name of the scam is.
Keep it saved. Anyone who thinks the point of trading bitcoins is not to make money off of people is an idiot and a liar. I won't concede to it being an actual Ponzi scheme though, as it is completely transparent in how it works and everyone who trades in bitcoins is trying to one up the other people who do the same, whereas a ponzi scheme is making money off of people who expect to get their money back.medv4380 said: