The Bitcoin apocalypse has begun

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Phoenix

Phoenix

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mtgoxUSD


The price of Bitcoin continues to drop by about a dollar every week to ten days, currently settling at about $2.80 USD, and Bitcoin enthusiasts are starting to get worried. “I am not trying to cause a panic here, but the value of Bitcoin has dropped very low today with huge spikes,” one user wrote on the Bitcoin forum on Reddit. “I do suspect it will hit 1 USD mark this week maybe even lower.We need to be discussing thoroughly on promoting Bitcoin and actively putting more effort to spread the message to newer users as I do suspect the popularity is dropping very steeply too.”

Betabeat has recently noticed more Bitcoin businesses for sale, including Forbitcoin (www.forbitcoin.com) and FreeBitcoins.org (www.freebitcoins.org). “When the mtgox hack happened, it totally screwed up forbitcoin.com as we used them for our merchant services…it was such a frustrating thing I just gave up on it and started to focus on finishing a film I had been working on for 3 years,” writes the owner of the sites to the Bitcoin People Google group.

It now appears the $3 to $33 prices for Bitcoin were due to speculation. “At the moment there is no need to use Bitcoin, as anything that can be bought for BTC can be bought for ‘real money’ elsewhere,” a Redditor writers. “Love it or hate it, Silkroad is the one example of Bitcoin actually being used as it was designed.”
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That Forbitcoin site linked claims one is worth 17 USD. Is there any way to actually determine the value of these?
 
I mined coins for a couple of months this summer. Helped pay off a nice gaming rig with two 6870s.

I feel bad (not really) for the early guys who loaded up on 58 and 59 level cards, which were superior for mining. I suspect the marked for those cards now on the used market is really bad.

I sold two of my used 6870s for basically what I paid for them. The price on those kept going up as supply dried up for bitcoin, and once the 7xxx series got delayed, no one could find 68-69xx cards for the upcoming BF3/MW3.

So I lucked out and made pretty good coin. But I also stopped mining last month when it dropped below $10/bitcoin.
 
Alucrid said:
Why did people buy these again?
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So their purchases could be "anonymous". I remember in one IRC channel, someone linked to a chat transcript of #bitcoinpolice where someone who had bought hundreds of bitcoins for the specific purpose of buying child porn had his bitcoins stolen and he went on there to demand the bitcoin police get his money back.

I also know a few people who wanted to give it a try and bought it when it was $16-20/bitcoin and everyone has been laughing at them for the large amount that they spent on "the future of currency" when it dropped to $8 and then continued to drop.

EDIT: Oh, I just remembered that the other thing everyone was laughing about was apparently the guy who setup one of the first bitcoin wallet sites vanished with everyones money. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2835188 is the one link I found regarding this.
 
Krugman had an interesting blog about the bitcoin scheme a while back, but basically said it will be a good example of why the gold standard fantasy doesn't work.
 
Alien Bob said:
All money is fake and has no value bro
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There's a difference between a promissory note based on actual currency and a digital algorithm based on something no one can seem to correctly explain.
 
Know someone who built a rig, got obsessive power bills and really is taking a hurt on the collapse of the bitcoin.

He knew (or should have known) it was a risk going into it.
 
Lord Voldemort said:
What could you ever actually buy with bitcoin? Or was it just speculation on the currency?
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There were certain sites that accepted bitcoin as a form of payment. What most people did though was mine them and then cash them in for money which is probably why it isn't doing so hot.
 
Davedough said:
There's a difference between a promissory note based on actual currency and a digital algorithm based on something no one can seem to correctly explain.
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It all comes out to the same in the end. Everything is dependent on perception and confidence. Lack of confidence is what kills all currencies, including "real" ones.
 
Can someone break down this whole bitcoin thing for me? I'm honestly curious and have no idea what the heck bitcoins are and what they do...
 
Could someone explain how people "mined" bitcoins? Does it involve having a computer run scripts to complete surveys or visit websites that rewarded free bitcoins?
 
RJNavarrete said:
Can someone break down this whole bitcoin thing for me? I'm honestly curious and have no idea what the heck bitcoins are and what they do...
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Virtual currency to buy pills online or something.
 
I just read the wiki entry and for the first time ever i am actually more confused about what the fuck this is, why it was invented and what the fuck "mining" is...there was talk of cryptography, data blocks, peer to peer networks...
 
RJNavarrete said:
Can someone break down this whole bitcoin thing for me? I'm honestly curious and have no idea what the heck bitcoins are and what they do...
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it's currency

open source digital currency that can be "mined" (as in generated) based on CPU power or something

despite being already shaky, a recent big hack into a foundation site or whatever (referred to as mt. gox (mt knox get it)) pretty much ruined faith in it
 
considering you could mine them, how did anyone think the price wasn't going to fall.
Planet Money did a story on bitcoins, this one guy had like $400k tied up in it.
 
Sold mine at $14, made a grand total of $2, but I did and still do like the idea of an electronic currency. Bitcoins or something like it will always have some type of place in the market, it's just that it spiked way too fast, and is now dropping like a rock. Looks like I sold mine on July 14th, hard to believe it's been 3 months already since I got out. That doesn't mean I wouldn't look to buy again if it keeps falling, sub $1 and I'll throw a few a grand at it.
 
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