How you tip someone some bitcoins if you felt generous.
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Bitcoin price skyrockets, crashes, rinse, repeat, internet starts investing in tulips
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How you tip someone some bitcoins if you felt generous.
You can buy denominations of Bitcoin.
Lasthope106
Member
It's fun to watch from the sidelines how fast the price of these things is rising. But I'm sitting this one out. Too much of a gamble.
criesofthepast
Member
I made $2000 in 12 hours. Facepalm I know right?
Fenderputty
Banned
What % of people / bit coins are actually being used as a medium for transaction? Most everyone I see talking about them are doing so in a speculative way.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
I might buy $100 then. If I lose that it's no big deal.
A few things -
I don't want to get into the semantics of what is and isn't money, but bitcion is a different beast than something like the US dollar due to three main reasons -
The US collect taxes in USD (i.e. there is always demand to USD).
The US pay it bills in USD.
The US, under the threat of jail and using its extensive law enforcement apparatus, protect the USD.
All 3 things are very important when you consider a trade medium, that is not to say that they invalidate something like bitcoin but it's important to understand that when you trust the USD, you effectively trust the US, when you trust bitcoin, you trust that it won't get hacked (seem reasonable to me) and that it won't get replaced by another crypto-currency (I have no idea how likely that is).
Next, the problem with deflationary currency is that it disincentive consumption and incentivize speculation, neither are great traits for a currency, and while auto-conversion services can take care of (most of) this uncertainty, surely you see that when you do this you effectively trading with USD.
Finally, I don't think it's fair to compare people who made money buying bitcoins early (or low) to people who invested in Tesla, when you invest in a company you can grow the economy, every dollar anyone ever made in bitcoin speculation is a dollar someone else lost.
Ummmm, maybe I'm missing something, but currency don't "flow into bitcoin" anymore than dollars "flow into apples" when I buy some at the supermarket.
Invest whatever you don't mind losing is my general plan.
Granted I haven't lost a dime, but still, if I didn't I wouldn't be miffed in the slightest.
ProfessorLobo
Banned
I was thinking we'd see a little crash when it hits a thousand... maybe not.
empty vessel
Member
That may have been true when it wasn't appreciating. In fact, most of those people are now regretting their decisions to spend their bitcoins on goods and services. For example, the guy who apparently purchased a NES for $220,000. That will kill anybody's desire to spend bitcoins on goods and services. Read through this thread, and you will see that almost all of the interest in bitcoin is as an appreciable asset. Legal bitcoin transactions were small to begin with, and as bitcoin appreciates relative to currencies, those transactions will only decrease.
I don't have a problem with anybody who wants to needlessly barter in bitcoin, even though I think it just increases risk by increasing the number of transactions beyond what is necessary. My biggest beef is with those who believe that as a private currency it is superior to the public currency of national governments or should replace it. But if somebody wants to use bitcoins to make transactions (and get needlessly hit with fees every time they want to withdraw real money from the bitcoin), by all means have fun. At least until the number of bitcoins remaining reaches 0.
Nope. I'm not sure what the relevance is, but this is a misunderstanding of fiat monetary systems. The function of modern currency is conditional upon national governments imposing tax obligations on its citizens and accepting payment in its currency. Fractional reserve banking (1) doesn't exist; and (2) has nothing to do with national currencies.
Sorry, but to say that with bitcoin, deflation only occurs when the economy is growing is incoherent. I think you mean to say that deflation occurs when people are buying into bitcoin? But bitcoin is not "the economy." Deflation is precisely people buying into a currency at the expense of the real economy (real goods and services). It works the same way with bitcoin as it does with real currency. I certainly understand that deflation was a built-in feature of bitcoin. Unfortunately, it's a "feature" that is attributable to its designer's economic ignorance, at least if the purpose was to create a currency.
I see a possible application of bitcoin in this regard (like a digital envelope within which to send money), although as you admit its deflationary bias will ultimately be its undoing. Moreover, the problem as I see it is twofold:
(1) Transacting in bitcoin is riskier than in a real currency. Anything that multiplies the number of transactions is going to carry more risk for the parties doing the transacting. Not only does transacting in bitcoin increase the number of transactions, it also interposes another market within the transaction, making the transaction even riskier.
(2) That bitcoin is (arguably) cheaper than credit card processing for a merchant is likely a temporal phenomenon that will not last, because if bitcoin transactions were to grow, the "free market" would likely ensure eventual parity with banks in that regard. In both cases, you're just dealing with a third party intermediary who has an incentive to squeeze out as much for itself from the transaction. It also is not cheaper for the purchaser, who using services like coinbase has to pay money (1%) to convert his dollars or other currency into bitcoin before the transaction can occur. I personally have no desire to needlessly increase the cost of all of my purchases by 1%. Needlessly complicating transactions usually does not render them cheaper, so I do not see any ultimate value in bitcoin in this regard.
A private company has real assets and creates a product or service and is therefore not inherently worthless. Gold is a physical good that has actual utility and is not inherently worthless. Bitcoin is a social construct and is inherently worthless. If it does not have utility (and I would argue we will come to find out that it doesn't), then it is valueless.
I can write an X on a piece of paper and call it a "real commodity." And, sadly, that may still have more utility than bitcoins at the end of the day. It is not that I think a digital envelope for sending currency can't work or provide some utility, but when it has been designed in such a manner as to encourage hoarding of the envelopes rather than sending of the envelopes, then it loses all of its possible utility. And if it has no possible utility, then it is "a fake and incredibly vague service/product."
Bitcoin is the product that its purchasers are supposed to use. But you are writing about it now as though early bitcoin adopters are investors. This is the very problem with bitcoin. It cannot be both a currency and a capital asset. And everybody is treating it like a capital asset. Which makes it nothing. I'm not calling Tesla a pyramid scheme either. Tesla builds cars, and knows the difference between the consumers of its product and its investors. Tesla was not designed so as to have its own investors hoard its own product. You see how such a business is designed to fail, right, eventually leaving the investors with loss?
Because at some point bitcoin won't be worth $10,000,000, but $0. In fact, that is entirely knowable right now; it is just the point at which it reaches $0 is unknowable. Again, it is not that an electronic envelope in which to send money could not be a viable product. But when the envelope itself is treated like a capital investment, that is what renders it a pyramid scheme.
StopMakingSense
Member
Well, btc 1000 lasted all of three hours.
velociraptor
Junior Member
How do I buy a bitcoin? I want to buy one but only once the price settles down. It's shot up by £200 in the past 24 hours. Argh.
You can buy fractions of a bitcoin too, you know.
ProfessorLobo
Banned
And here comes a little crash, almost down to 900 now. How low will it go?
What reputable vendors sell fractions of bitcoins?
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Won't the energy costs of mining bitcoins eventually be higher than the value of the coins?
edit: I guess you can use idle PCs through peer-to-peer, in which case it would be cheap.
edit: I guess you can use idle PCs through peer-to-peer, in which case it would be cheap.
StopMakingSense
Member
GPU setups will never make back their investment/energy cost these days.
It's all over the place! lol.
toxicgonzo
Taxes?! Isn't this the line for Metallica?
Your friend should reconsider, because a x4 7950 setup is not cost efficient. Instead, he could have bought specialized USB hardware for bitmining. A $15 USB miner could produce 75% the output of a 7950.
But at the very least he can play PC games at 1080p60fps
StopMakingSense
Member
At a tiny fraction of the energy cost, as well.
criesofthepast
Member
BTC-E and MTGOX I think being DDOS'd for a second both were down. lol love this.
If a serious attack happens like it did earlier this year this shit will free fall.
If a serious attack happens like it did earlier this year this shit will free fall.
Then they lock mtgox again and people panic sell/buy and shit goes up again.
This is the same thing that happened months ago when someone DDOS'd the market.
Whoever did, made off with a pretty penny I'd imagine.
I forgot to mention it was litecoins, dunno if that factors in much but I know it's much cheaper at 6 euros
StopMakingSense
Member
Oh, that I don't know about, then. For bitcoins it is a huge waste of money.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Let's see if the Bubbles and Mania chart applies.
We should currently be in the enthusiasm/public part or so. I think for the public aspect to take place we need a simpler way to buy bitcoins.
But personally I actually think bitcoins could keep going up for a while.
We should currently be in the enthusiasm/public part or so. I think for the public aspect to take place we need a simpler way to buy bitcoins.
But personally I actually think bitcoins could keep going up for a while.
DerZuhälter
Member
I need to get in into this! I wanna let my money work for me too and be a fat cat with a top hat and monocle smoking a cigar!
criesofthepast
Member
Yah it does seem like an endless cycle of the same shit. Those who feel they missed out on big money fret not. Don't panic buy.
SpectreFire
Member
I'm assuming very little.
Look at the discussions online about bitcoins. It's not about "oh man, I'm gonna buy so much and use it online to buy stuff!"
No, it's about "oh man, I'm gonna buy it so much so I can sell it back for real money!"
The vast majority of the population has next to no practical use for bitcoins. It's just pointless. It's a novelty that's turned into a speculative trade.
Skel1ingt0n
I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
Screw it! Just gave my friend $200 to buy me FIVE Litecoins, and told him he could keep the rest for making it easy on me.
Worst case scenario, I'm out $200 - it sucks, but that's life and it won't hurt me in the long run.
Best case, it hits half of what Bitcoin does and I sell at $500 or so, making a nice $2,300 profit in the next year or so.
At the end of the day, I'm just not willing to miss the boat twice.
Worst case scenario, I'm out $200 - it sucks, but that's life and it won't hurt me in the long run.
Best case, it hits half of what Bitcoin does and I sell at $500 or so, making a nice $2,300 profit in the next year or so.
At the end of the day, I'm just not willing to miss the boat twice.
criesofthepast
Member
Canadian right?
Easiest way to buy litecoins is www.vaultofsatoshi.com
They verified me in 10 minutes. You could get verified and make a cash deposit at a Bank of Montreal and have access to your funds to buy coins literally in 2 hours if all goes smoothly. Beware two things though: for the time being they are dealing in US currency so you'll be dinged for the conversion at BMO, AND the prices of coins (more so for bitcoin than litecoin) can be more expensive than other exchanges. For litecoins though the sell wall I see one selling for $31 which compared to BTC-E.com is around the same price. It is a new website but based in the toronto area and the founders are well known in the business community. I do not vouge for them so use at own discretion but so far everything seems legit with them.
CAVirtex is too slow with verification and honestly their fees are ridiculous. Good we got some competition in Canada now.
Also PayPal is reversable so not many people are going to want to sell coins through PayPal. It is a pain to set this up through many exchanges but spend the week and do so now before things really blow up down the road and you wish you would have gotten in.
Someone one BTCE selling 4 million dollars worth of litecoins at $30 a pop. Dear god.
Even though its probably a fake sell to get people stirred up but still.
because that's how it is right now. these things take time to develop.
kinda like how the internet today is not the same as AOL in 1994. this is cryptocurrency just starting out. and before the internet blew up, it was like "that's for nerds and weirdos." then bam, we can't live without it.
On that note, Bitcoin is not even the one we'll be using casually in the future since transactions are so slow. Right now, it looks like Litecoin might be the one, but we'll have to see what other developers come up with.
that kind of shit is always fake. probably has a buy order on the low end. this is how manipulators shake pennies out of fickle hands. No whale would sell off all their LTC right now, it'd be financial suicide.
CaptainZombie
Member
A month or so ago I had $1200 in bitcoins in my wallet, equating to around 10 coins at the market value then. I pulled the money out because I was concerned another drop was coming. I could of made $10K at these prices today. ARGH!!!!!
Damn!
lost something like half my litecoins this way
I cashed out when I saw a huge sell wall coming up, and by the time I realized it was fake, the price had gone up by quite a bit so converting my dollars back to litecoin resulted in a much lower litecoin supply for me.CaptainZombie
Member
Yeah, I'm kicking myself too because it's not like I even needed the money either at that moment. I'm gonna keep an eye on it now and see where it goes. I'm thinking of maybe looking into Litecoin to buy some coins and let it sit there for a bit just in case.
criesofthepast
Member
I had around 100 litecoins I had bought for around $200 earlier this year (under $2 a coin) and I ended up selling them for $400. 100 coins is worth about $3000 now. Sooooo yah. Lol. Hindsight and all that right? That's life.
Now I'm back in and already up a few grand in less than a day so it worked out. I really want to buy more though so I want it to tank a bit. I know longterm it will hit triple digits especially when it is listed on MTGOX.
I had 25BTC I sold when the SR bust news hit. I thought it'd go lower. Just kept going up and I kept waiting, now it's way too high for me to buy any back lol. I still have 6 BTC, but it's off-limits for selling - I've wanted to keep at least 5 coin at all times. Even if it hits $10K I'll be holding these.
Oh and I sold like 20 Litecoins a couple weeks ago, now they've tripled in value. Oh well... no losses and I've made several thousands already so can't be upset.
tearsofash
Member
Are there any decent equivalents to Mt. Gox? I can't recover my password or make a new account it seems. I don't actually have any bitcoins yet (0.0001) but I'm working on it.
criesofthepast
Member
We need an officil bitcoin/altcoin OT with some good info in the op for beginners. I would do it but I'm not even the most knowledgeable person there is with this stuff and I suck at making OT's.
CaptainZombie
Member
Yeah good points from both you guys. It's the nature of the beast and how this market works.
Am I able to buy Litecoin's through Coinbase? I was thinking of buying some now and waiting to see if those happen to go up anymore in the future. Some are calling Litecoin a dead cryptocurrency.
criesofthepast
Member
Don't think you can buy litecoins through coinbase. Best bet is to buy bitcoins from coinebase then buy litecoins from BTC-E then remove the coins from BTC-E and store offline.
Coinbase did hire the creator of litecoin not too long ago so I'm sure it is coming. Once coinbase and mtgox list litecoins things will get a bit crazy.
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