wachtwoord

I responded to the volatility and explained why it's not a problem. Volatility for an investment isn't important, we just require a stronger rate of return. Further extreme volatility is to be expected in something that is as grossly undervalued as Bitcoin and will balance out as the market cap grows. I'm sure the same thing happened to gold when it was first discovered. With our current fast paced society the fluctuations just go a hell of a lot faster :) You claimed overvaluation because it went up fast and then down by ~50% in a few days and I claimed that's not what defines overvaluation. I can't provide a truly accurate valuation besides WAY WAY higher than today. People have done this in the past and continue to do so. This: http://bitcoin-valuation.org/fair-value-bitcoin-28823/ is an example and this ignores most of the uses of Bitcoin and also forgets to inflate the money supply to account for 20 years of inflation. The thing is, if you believe it's overvalued today you must be pretty sure the value is very close to zero as the market cap today is just way too low as a currency. Even if Bitcoin would only replace gold (and Bitcoin is better than gold) the value would be >$300k per Bitcoin given the current market cap of gold. This can be your opinion (that the whole idea behind crypto and probably gold even does not appeal to you at all) but then say so and at least offer the common Keynsian arguments instead of the non-arguments your offering now. You see, I don't think our discussion is very productive in the way we're doing it now :)

I can't see a one. But to be fair I'll respond to your entire post now. Bitcoin is massively undervalued, so it's not a bubble. It might go down a lot from here still though. That does not make it a bubble. I definitely would not mind being paid in Bitcoin. Although I'd prefer the be paid multiple times per month then to Dollar cost average a little better :) It's more secure than any other store of value I ever used or seen. The decentralization is the thing that makes it secure (so if you start using a centralized approach you know where you've gone wrong). The security is in your own hands, so as a highly educated IT professional I can tell you I have decent security ;) Don't know how to do that yourself and need it? Hire me or someone like me. That's because volatility isn't a problem. If you start something from scratch is going to be volatile. What do you think the prices of any huge ass company of today would look like in the first years after its inception (Think MSFT or GOOG for instance). That's just the way it goes when 1. something truly valuable starts from scratch and 2. The value is actually being expanded as you go. The more massive something is undervalued to more massive the price fluctuations. again your kinda ignoring my points really. First bitcoin is massively overvalued. If you say it is undervalued then you dont understand what the fundamental value of bitcoin is. When it was 30$ it had the same amount of daily transactions at 1k$. It means people arent really using it much to pay for stuff, but mostly to speculate and day trade. So hence its massively overvalued. Everyone is hoarding it, and that is why the price is so high now. Even most bitcoin fanatics agree with this. Bitpay had like 100 million$ of transactions total now. Given its daily volume, and given the fact iv seen a bunch of merchants basicly saying that barely anyone uses it to pay for stuff, it means people dont really use it yet. And at some point everyone is going to look around and realize, everyone is speculating, and nobody is using this for stuff! And then the price will crash to like 20$ again. And second, the whole point is that if it is volatile and risky to use, people wont use it. And so it will not stop being volatile. You need widespread adoption to stop this. You basicly said, naaah google was volatile as well. But that comparison is completly ridicilous because google's value could be volatile, because it didnt get in the way of its use. And really you want to be paid in bitcoins?? What if you have to pay rent. You get paid when they are worth 1k$. And now they are at 600$ and you have to pay your living expenses from a salary that is worth almost 50% less. Im not sure anyone but gamblers want to get paid like this. So again, because I think you dont understand this, most regular people dont like to use bitcoin, because it doesnt really offer a big advantage, and you could lose like 30% before you get to pay for your stuff. And if you just keep dollars in a bitstamp account or something, and pay with those, then why the hell use them in the first place? Why not use paypal. Does exactly the same. And it is actually free to use. And finally alot of bitcoin's usefullness is really only because banks are still inefficient in certain areas. If it really becomes a thread, they can just band together and become more efficient. But yeah i guess these problems will just magically take care of it self. You're just reiterating your previous points without really reading my responses. I could do the same but that wouldn't really be valuable :) If your this sure Bitcoin is overvalued I'd direct you to https://www.bitfinex.com/ to short sell Bitcoin and put your money where your mouth is.

I really think a basket method is the best way to go about this. No one knows what is going to happen, except for maybe Satoshi, the Winklevii, and the FBI (since they hold so much of DPR's money :P). Who would have thought Dogecoin and Deutsche eMark (I love these names!) would have rocketed up yesterday? You're not going to see possible 100x growth in just Bitcoin. $60k a coin where you have to worry about them being stolen? Not to mention that the average American is notoriously bad with decimal places to actually split that up and spend it right. I haven't even heard people talking about Ripple, which is near a $2B market cap and where they did the complete opposite of BTC as far as I can tell and made all the coins and are now selling em'. It's #2 ahead of LTC. If you want to speculate that's fine. Dogecoin will go nowhere it's a Bitcoin clone and Deutsche eMark is a PPCoin clone. If you're going to speculate don't do it basket style as you'll lose guaranteed. You'll need to cherry pick the pump and dumps that will work. Good luck, I think the luck factor is even larger than when doing the same with penny stocks. I'd advice to stick with the real thing or invest in altcoins that at least vary on the original concept. Even LTC (different hashing algorithm) and PPCoin (Proof of Stake) are only minor variations and these variations can be included in Bitcoin if this is needed. So even LTC and PPCoin have very limited chances of success. If an alt-coin is ever created which revolutionizes crypto-currencies in a way that Bitcoin cannot adopt it, by all means jump on it as soon as possible.

Why would you think this? Are you going to hold onto all your possessions until your death if I guarantee they'll rise in value @ a steady 2% APR indefinitely? Of course not, you want to use and enjoy your "money", for that is the only purpose to pursue wealth in the first place.

Worlds Within the Margin you seem to miss the point so much it's probably impossible to explain it to you. Therefore I'll ignore most of your rant but I'll offer these 2 points: 1. Tulips aren't unlimited in amount and tulips spoil. I have no idea why anyone would compare Bitcoin to that except utter ignorance. 2. There are companies who pay their employees in Bitcoin. The first one is Finish I believe and recently I remember seeing this: http://www.coindesk.com/polish-web-design-company-pays-salaries-bitcoin/ in the news. I hope you educate yourself better :)

Yup because these are centralized (egold was the most famous I believe). In 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto made a revolutionary new approach which makes all this feasible.

Haha, that's what most people think and in reality it will prove to be completely opposite. The more the existing system fights Bitcoin, the stronger it will get. If you fight it by limiting the functionality of your own money (fiat) your only crippling fiat even more giving Bitcoin a larger benefit. The ban on gold by the US also killed gold right? Oh wait, it didn't :) Disclaimer: Note that the above is my opinion. I don't think it's likely I'm wrong, but stranger things have happened ;)

How? The government has, what, 1.6 billion rounds of ammo? Are they really going to let a new 1% exist that got there by putting $100 in these a few years ago? Power is much more complex than just how paper wealthy someone is. Didn't Margaret Thatcher once say that if she could choose absolute political power or the power of being able to issue currency she's choose the latter because that's more powerful? Full (or nigh full) adoption of Bitcoin will take that power away from governments.

Because it takes power away from central banks and governments.

It can provide a number of functions. The most important being store of value (if you read the Voorhees' articles I linked to you can read why I regard Bitcoin as superior to gold), currency (means of exchange) and remittance. The main advantage above fiat currency is that it cannot be inflated away. Next to that it's really important that you are able to control your own money. With fiat the only way to control your own money is by using cash. If you want to do it electronically you need a bank account and for that you need to lend your money to a third party entity we know as banks. Banks can do all sorts of nasty things such charging high fees, being slow, blocking transactions and in the worst of cases: lose your money. With Bitcoin you control your own funds which makes it cheaper, faster and most importantly constantly in your own control. I'm not sure what will happen when the society breaks down and I doubt anyone does. If I would regard that a realistic possibility I would relocate and stockpile on many other things such as guns, ammunition, long lasting food and water, matches, toilet paper etc.

This is my gripe with bitcoin's value in the long-term. There is value in having an inflationary monetary system where the levels of inflation can somewhat be controlled. Yes there are abuses...of course. But IMHO those potential abuses are (1) less harmful than the problems of not having those levers to pull in times of need, and (2) less harmful than the deflationary nature of how bitcoin is currently set up (with a fixed amount). Even gold isn't a totally fixed supply. This is the popular (Keynesian) viewpoint. I'm a contrarian and think the Keynesian view of economy is utterly and completely wrong. The centralist (regulated) approach will always be inferior to the distributed (free market) approach for matters as complex as the global economy. Most of the world does not agree with me so take your pick :)

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The X-files showed us that the only way to get piece on Earth is for all people to die. Please don't wish for that! ;) I guess then we'll need a strict definition of war first ;) The only example I know outside of human behavior is wars between ant hills. That wouldn't quite do it either. Lions would still kill antelope and sharks would still kill seals, lobsters would still eat their young, etc.

Thanks. Selling shovels I see :) Are you doing pretty well with this? Not especially. I've done it once and the guy approached me (because I'm an long time member of the Bitcoin forums and 'seemed intelligent'). It kind of fun and easy to do as all I'm basically doing is explaining my own setup (which is secure), why it works and talking him through setting it up in the same way (he's also asking general Bitcoin questions to understand it better). The guy is very satisfied :) Absolutely agree. It's sort of sickening to be honest. The combined computing power of bitcoin is more than 256 times that of the largest 500 supercomputers combined. It's things like this that remind me why we don't have flying cars. We'd rather foam at the mouth when an iPad is released with 128GB than actually make anything useful. I'm going to be blunt, that's absolute bullshit. It's not wasteful it's for securing the network. What do you think the sum of financial institutions complete with ATMs cost? What do you think the computer networks of VISA and AMEX costs? What do you think the entire network of WU costs? Let me tell you Bitcoin's approach is not only cheaper it's also real security instead of the false security the other institutions offer (a bank can transfer funds from your account without your consent). The computing power needs to go up a bit further to make it completely financially unviable to attack it even for superpowers (USA/China). Not tha i's possible to profitable attack it today, but at a huge loss it's still feasible.

The X-files showed us that the only way to get piece on Earth is for all people to die. Please don't wish for that! ;)

Warm weather :)

I think Churchill sums it up best: Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. I disagree. Even many dictatorships have outperformed democracy. At least democracy as we define it nowadays with an equal voting right for everyone. I think that's one of the most naive and stupid things ever envisioned by humans.

I'm going to focus on another aspect totally ignored. The wealth tax. See: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304355104579232480552517224?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion I think the people in charge are probably retarded enough to actually do this (then again they might not). I'm interested to hear other viewpoints :)

Have fun: http://icbit.se/futures I know nothing about futures so dumb question: Wouldn't those exposure me to unlimited losses if bitcoin skyrocketed? I'm pretty sure it uses margin and auto-liquidation.

Oh you ain't seen nothing yet. Bitcoin can be much much more volatile than this and has in the past. Still an excellent store of value though. Oh, and the Winkeloss twins have made an ETF out of their 1% holding and are in the process of getting it approved.

Hahaha, thanks so recognizable :)

Have fun: http://icbit.se/futures

Haha I've seen those appear ~1.5 year ago. The fool and his money are soon parted, and this happens faster with Bitcoin ;)

Maybe I'm not understanding, but if you are going to give away 100% anyway, does it matter if you compounded it all and then gave it away or gave away your whole life? Aren't we just choosing who benefits--people now or people later? Is there a big difference between now-people and later-people? I'm not sure I particularly care which time period of people I'm helping, but perhaps there is some reason for preference for now-people. I guess you could argue affecting people now is better since they can influence more people, but isn't that similar to the lost-compounding of money that you have given away? (In other words, does the helping of people now help more over the long term than waiting and giving more away? That seems very hard to answer, and would dramatically depend on what you were giving to.) I think it is much better to give $190M away when you are 98 than it is to give $50M away when you are 75. That's only 6% annually.

We're not going to agree here, that's not the reason I bumped the topic. I bumped it to give everyone here that missed it half a year ago another chance at looking into this and forming their own opinion. You know my opinion. Good luck to everyone :)